


How To Get Rid of the Devil in 12 Simple Steps by Tony Stark and Dean Winchester

by fallenobsidian



Category: Supernatural, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Implied Relationships, Lots of drinking, Multi, Multiple chapters, Sass, anyway, anyway clintasha is a thing in here now, before aou, hope you enjoy it, like OH LOOK THEY'RE KISSING OH GOD THE WORLD IS ENDING, lots of flirting probably, lots of sass, nine chapters in AND I'M FINALLY ADDING NEW TAGS HOW EXCITING, not tagging other realtionships because i don't know where this is going to go exactly, the avengers meet the spn crew, voila new tag for it, will change it later if something intense happens
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-12 15:22:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4484468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallenobsidian/pseuds/fallenobsidian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With no good options in sight for how to defeat the Devil, Crowley goes to the boys and Bobby with another option: a spell said to summon the most powerful force known. However, the spell has never been successfully accomplished, leaving them no idea what they would actually be summoning. Once it's decided that they will at least try, the result is the opposite of what they expect.</p><p>An Avengers/SPN crossover fic. Takes place after Dark Side of the Moon and before Age of Ultron.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Summoning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inthedarkdark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inthedarkdark/gifts).



“A spell?” Bobby repeated incredulously. 

Crowley had to look away to prevent himself from rolling his eyes for the eighth time that visit. “Yes, Bobby, a spell. Did you lose your hearing when you lost the ability to walk?”

Bobby glared and squared his jaw. “Now you listen to me—”

Crowley held up a hand. “Please. I’ve done that enough today. Do the spell or don’t, it’s up to you. I just thought I would provide you lot with another option besides, you know, dying horribly? I also risked my own skin getting this, so a thank you would be appreciated.”

Dean had just opened his mouth with a prepared insult when Crowley disappeared. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered, running a hand through his short hair. 

Sam shook his head from where he was sitting beside Bobby’s desk. “Is there any chance this spell could work? I mean, I’m not gung ho about using magic to solve this but if it can help…”

“Oh yeah! How could it go wrong? It’s just summoning some sort of powerful force that no one knows jack about. It could be another demon, it could be a damn earthquake, who knows? Let’s go!” Dean replied sarcastically as he walked over to the battered refrigerator to grab a beer. 

A loud sigh erupted from Sam’s lips. “Dean, look—”

“Look at what, Sam? The fact that we are so desperate to have us not say yes to our dickbag angels that we turn to freaking magic? I hate magic!”

Bobby, who had been quiet up to this point due to weighing all the options in his head, finally spoke up. “We might not have a choice, Dean. I don’t want to do it any more than you, but you can’t say this is the first time we did a spell we weren’t sure about to solve a large problem.”

“Yes, but those problems have never been as bad as the damn Apocalypse, and whatever we were summoning wasn’t a force big enough to battle Lucifer! How do we even know we would be able to control it once it was here? It might be just as bad, if not worse! We don’t need another big bad occupying the Earth right now, okay? Angels and demons are bad enough.” Dean retorted indignantly

“But, Dean, what if it’s a force of good? Are we going to ignore the fact that this could actually be just what we need? A way out?” Sam insisted, finally rising to his feet and walking towards his brother.

“A way out of the mess you started, you mean?” It was low of Dean to bring it up, and the look on Sam’s face conveyed as much. Dean shook his head and drank down half his beer before speaking again. “Fine. I guess I’m outnumbered here. But if this turns out to be exactly like I said it would be, I will be taking my opportunity to say ‘I told you so’. Now what exactly do we need for this spell, anyway?”

 

After calling Cas for help, they finally had all of the needed supplies gathered about a day and a half later.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Castiel remarked, continuously eyeing their surroundings, as they were starting to set up the ingredients.

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Dean replied under his breath as he poured the blood of something or another into a small bowl. Sam, who was standing next to him, was aligning the dried up old bones of some dog that was considered holy. As far as any of them were concerned, the ingredients made no sense for the spell they were about to perform. It wasn’t like anything they had every casted before. 

Bobby wheeled himself over to the table where everyone was gathered, the spell from Crowley in his hand. “Okay, everyone. Prepare yourselves,” he said before taking a deep breath and adjusting his hat. “ _Vindex passionem meam. Finis super nos. Quod vox quam audistis. Hominum perditorum voce humiles est voci. Etiam periculum imminet omnibus nobis. Salva nos digni sumus._ ”

As soon as Bobby had finished chanting the spell, a blue light started emitting from the table in front of them. Electricity hummed in the air and the floor started cracking open in the middle of the room. Air started getting thrown violently around the room, and anything that weighed less than ten pound was being catapulted around the four of them. The ingredients on the table started floating before their eyes and spinning as though they were creating a tornado. The light from the table moved up and became the epicenter of the spinning bones, blood, and feathers. Eventually, the mini tornado moved into the middle of the room, and all of the moving objects around them started spinning in cadence with it.

“Bobby, what’s happening?” Dean shouted over the noise.

“The hell if I know, son!” Bobby yelled back, clutching onto his wheelchair for dear life. Unconsciously, the brothers reached out to each other, grounding them and enabling them to focus on the current moment and not worry about if the other was dead or not. Castiel’s fingers twitched as he reached out and touched what little amount of grace he had left to defend his charges from whatever was coming.

Suddenly, actual bolts of lightning were coming down through the point of convergence. The blue light became so bright that all but Castiel had to shield their eyes. Then, with an invisible force that knocked everyone off their feet (except for Bobby, who got blasted back to the back wall) and decimated the windows, the “power” they had summoned appeared before them. To say it wasn’t what they expected would be a considerable understatement.

“What the—” Dean started.

“—hell is this?” a fully armored Tony Stark finished. 

Sam stared wide eyed at the beings in front of them. “Bobby, did you just… summon The Avengers?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is definitely a prompt that I threw at my friend (the beautiful inthedarkdark/Anette) and then decided I wanted to try too. Who knew I would have such a mighty need for Avengers vs. Lucifer? Hopefully it won't take forever to update this with new chapters where some good stuff will finally start happening, as I'm pretty excited to see where this goes! Sorry for the shortness of the chapter, but we had to get the ball rolling and that was just how it ended up being. Thank you for reading!
> 
> literal translation of the Latin:  
> "Defender of my suffering. The end is upon us. That noise you hear. It is the sound of the voice of the humble man of perdition. Danger threatens us all. Save us we are worthy."


	2. Introductions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can Sam and Dean convince they're new-found allies to help them in the fight against the Devil? Or are they back at square one?

Both parties were silent for about five minutes. No one could think of anything to say. Tony had given up on having a battle-ready stance as soon as he had gotten there, but refused to step out of his armor. There was muffled talking from behind his helmet, which meant he was most likely asking JARVIS where they were. Thor was standing with his hammer at the ready, looking more and more confused as time went on. This was the first time he had magically transferred to another plane without using the bifrost or the portals from the Convergence and he kept trying to rationalize how that happened. Hawkeye’s arm had eventually gotten tired from pulling his bowstring tight and prepped to fire and he soon dropped it, but he continued to hold an arrow in his hand that was most likely explosive just in case. He spotted multiple weapons in the room they were in alone and wasn’t about to get caught off guard. Steve’s shield was being held in front of his body protectively, but his posture said he wasn’t looking for a fight. The men in front of him hadn’t attacked when they got there, so they were being given the benefit of the doubt. Bruce kept looking nervously around, trying to figure out if he was in danger of going green anytime soon. It had been a rough couple of months for him, and he was looking to avoid a fight if at all possible. Natasha had put her gun away a few moments after arriving and decided to simply have her arms crossed, as it wouldn’t take bullets to take down the four people in front of her. They looked hardy in a fight, but so did all of the other people she went up against.

The boys, on the other hand, were still on the floor, just staring. Sam looked like he was trying to rationalize how they had just summoned Earth’s Mightiest Heroes while also attempting to not look threatening. Dean was smiling despite himself and trying to not nerd out while also subtly checking Nat out. Clint noticed and gripped his arrow a little tighter.

Castiel, who hadn’t a clue who the Avengers were in the first place, reached out with his grace to touch the minds of the crew. He was surprised to find how honest and loyal they were to each other. As far as he could tell, they were also very capable fighters, which was good enough for him, so he spoke first. “Well, they do look powerful,” he stated after observing them all. “I do believe they would be useful in our battle against the Devil.”

Bobby, who was pretty sure he was dreaming all of this, sighed loudly. “I need a drink,” he announced quietly before finally moving his wheelchair away from the wall, past the large group in his living room, and to the kitchen.

“Allow me to join you,” Tony offered after splitting open his suit and walking out of it, mildly disoriented. “God knows alcohol can’t hurt at this point. No idea what’s going on…” he muttered as he followed Bobby to the liquor cabinet. After that, Steve decided to return his shield to his back strap and step forward. He helped both Sam and Dean to their feet before shaking their hands. 

“Steve Rogers,” he introduced with a nod. “I’m assuming you’re the reason we’re here. Do you mind explaining why exactly that is?”

“I’m Dean, this is my brother Sam,” Dean blurted before Sam had a chance to speak, causing the brother to look sideways at him with a mildly annoyed expression on his face. Dean didn’t notice this and continued. “The guy in the trenchcoat over there is Cas,” Cas nodded at all of them, “and the one in the wheelchair is Bobby. This is probably going to be a little strange to explain, so I’m just going to give you the down and dirty version.” He took a deep breath before continuing, noticing everyone was staring at him. Tony had returned with tumbler full of bourbon, and was looking fairly curious as to what Dean was about to say. So, Dean started by stating the obvious. “Well, it’s the apocalypse. Lucifer has risen from the depths and decided that he is going to claim the world. Sam, here, is his human vessel and he is continuously looking for ways to jump in his skin. The archangel Michael is determined to meet Lucifer in battle and then whoever wins gets the Earth. Naturally, I am Michael’s vessel. So they’re after us both so they can pretty much play a monster version of ‘anything you can do I can do better’. So, we need your help in stopping Satan so that this battle never needs to take place.” Dean took a moment to gauge the expressions of his spectators. To his surprise, most of them didn’t look like they thought he was nuts. “And not to go all Star Wars on you guys, but you’re our only hope.” He added with a smile, hoping the humor would block out the fact that he was terrified they would turn him down. These people had an actual chance of being everything they needed, and he would be damned if he screwed that up.

Sam nodded in agreeance, expression turning soft. He fiddled with his hands nervously before also speaking up. “Please. I know this must sound like the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard, but it’s true. People are dying out there, and we are trying our best to save them. Since it looks like our best might not be good enough, well… here you are.”

“I am from the realm of Asgard,” Thor spoke in his commanding voice, hammer now resting passively at his side, “I am quite familiar with the concept of an apocalypse. And if there is suffering at hand, I will gladly aid you in this plight.”

“As will I,” Steve affirmed with a nod. “There are enough bad things out there without the devil himself adding to it.”

“Sure. We already kicked one would-be God’s ass, might as well add another pretender to that list,” Tony added before taking a swig of his drink, causing Thor to glance at him with a warning in his eyes.

Bruce, who had looked conflicted through this entire introduction, shook his head. “Look, I really want to help, but I’m trying to get what I got under control. So, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll help from the sidelines.”

“Banner, we talked about this. We even came up with a plan for this, okay? You’d be fine!” Stark insisted, clapping his friend on the back. “Besides, you need a little something to get the stress out. You haven’t been going to that Pilates class I signed you up for, I checked, so c’mon, get on board. It’ll be fun.” All Bruce did was sigh and give a half-hearted shrug that turned into a nod.

“Sounds like we got our work cut out for us,” Natasha said, the corners of her mouth upturned in a smirk. “Besides, after Loki, how bad could he be?”

Clint looked around at all of his teammates, a hand upturned. “Really? All of you are in just like that? Not to be the skeptic of the group, but I’d kinda like to know how this whole business started. Who screwed up so badly that they started the freaking apocalypse? Sounds a little extreme, don’t you think?” Sam and Dean exchanged nervous looks.

“Clint, you’ve seen aliens come out of a portal in the sky,” Romanov retorted, eyebrows raised in challenge. “You work next to the God of Thunder. Why is this harder for you to believe?”

Barton tilted his head at her disbelievingly. “Yeah, but they didn’t know that,” he murmured in a way that was barely audible. “Anyway, despite that, I still think it’s a valid question. How did this whole thing start?” he returned at regular volume.

The group all turned to Sam and Dean expectantly, and the boys were at a loss for words. Finally, Dean forced out a fake chuckle. “Well, it’s a funny story—”

“That means you started it,” Steve interrupted, shaking his head. “And now we’re supposed to help you undo the damage you’ve done. Seems this place is no different than back home.”

Sam took a step forward. “Look, I didn’t know it was going to happen this way. I was trying to get rid of a powerful demon, and her death ended up kick starting this entire thing. So yes, I started it. I admit it. But there’s nothing I can do about that now except try as hard as I can to fix it. And as much as I would like to, I can’t do that on my own. I need your help.”

The two stared at each other for a short while, the captain gauging the honesty of the man before him and the younger Winchester trying his best to not flinch at the scrutiny. Eventually, the soldier accepted what he saw. “Okay, we’re in.”

“What?” Clint protested. 

“If you don’t like it, Barton, you don’t have to do it. But I would feel better out there knowing you had my back,” Steve replied calmly.

Hawkeye stood in stunned silence for a moment before giving up. “Fine. Sure. The devil. Why not? I mean, this should be easy, right? It’s not like he’s one of the worst things out there. Hell, I’m excited,” he said to himself as he walked back to where Tony had gotten his bourbon from.

Tony smiled wide and grabbed his friend’s shoulder affectionately. “Ah, Cap. Always bringing the team a little closer together with your inspiring words. I can honestly say I’m truly touched.”

Rogers rolled his eyes. “Your sarcasm is noted as always, Stark.”

And then suddenly they had split off into groups. Steve continued his banter with Tony, Natasha went over to Clint who started immediately ranting about something or another, Thor started discussing mystical theory with Bruce on both the devil and how they were summoned there in the first place, and the brothers were left staring at the entire scene before them. Bobby wheeled over to them, shaking his head. 

“I can’t believe that worked,” he told them under his breath.

Dean’s forehead creased with annoyance. “Yeah, no thanks to you, where have you been?”

Bobby held up a half empty bottle of whisky. “This sucker ain’t gonna to drink itself. Besides, you think I would have been able to reason with these guys any better than you? Get serious.”

Sam let out a small laugh. “Either way, it worked. And I’m starting to think that we might win this thing after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo, chapter 2! I'm pumped! I have a feeling that while this is getting off to a bit of a bumpy beginning, it'll end up getting better as the story progresses. Beginnings are hard and you're just starting to learn the chemistry between the characters. Once that's established, everything goes a lot smoother.  
> I would like to say a humongous THANK YOU to the people who have left kudos and/or commented on this story. I really wasn't expecting anyone to read it, and you guys have really inspired me to keep going. I hope I don't let you down.


	3. Getting Acquainted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everybody is meeting everybody and new friendships are being made. (God I suck at chapter summaries)

“I take it back. This was a horrible plan,” Sam stated to no one in particular as he surveyed the chaos around him. The Avengers had only been there for about two hours but it felt more like a week. 

Clint, Natasha, and Dean had decided to have an extreme shooting contest with every round becoming more and more ridiculous. At one point Natasha actually hung backwards off of Clint’s shoulders while he got a cup of coffee and bulls-eyed every shot just to prove a point. Dean, who was never one to back down from a challenge, attempted to convince Sam to let him dangle from Sam’s shoulders, but after smashing one of Bobby’s coffee tables on the first try Sam refused. Barton didn’t even try to muffle his cackle as he drank his coffee. 

“Oh like you could do what she did,” Dean shot at him, using anger to vent his embarrassment. 

Clint raised his eyebrows. “What, you think I can’t?”

“Damn right I do. Or don’t. Whatever, you know what I mean.”

Clint hopped down off of the counter and carefully set down his mug. “C’mere Nat, let’s do this.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Are you serious?”

Barton looked taken aback. “Don’t I look serious? What, you think you can’t hold me?”

Natasha gritted her teeth. “You know perfectly well I can.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

She narrowed her eyes at him but walked over nonetheless and squared her body to prepare for the weight she was about to hold. Clint kicked up and easily hooked his knees on her shoulders as she bent down at the knees and then grasped his ankles when she returned to her normal height. 

“Okay, what am I shooting at?” Clint asked as he readied his pistol. “I bet I can make a hole through your shirt without the bullet touching you as you walk to the back of the room.”

It took milliseconds for Dean to point at him and reply, “You’re on. But I’ll have you know that if you hit me, I’m gonna be pissed.” And he immediately turned on his heel and started walking to the back wall. He heard the gun go off and saw the bullet enter the wall in front of him but hadn’t felt a thing. Dean turned back around triumphantly. “Ha! I knew you couldn’t do it!”

Barton smirked. “Check your collar,” he said as he started getting down from Nat’s shoulders. 

Dean pulled the neck of his flannel shirt away from him and saw a hole exactly in the middle of the bottom corner of the collar. “Holy crap,” he muttered before looking up at Clint like he had just found God himself. “Dude, you gotta teach me how to do that.”

Bobby and Tony had disappeared soon after the make-shift negotiations had ended, and when Sam had gone to investigate he had found them both outside. Tony looked particularly elated at the sight of hundreds of cars and piles of trashed metal and had immediately thrown himself into “build mode”. He would never admit to anyone but himself that tinkering with anything mechanical relaxed him, which was something he definitely needed. The whole “going to a new dimension” thing had really freaked him out and started reminding him of New York, which was definitely something he didn’t need to deal with at that particular moment. So, he found a project to work on to keep his hands occupied and made casual conversation with Bobby. Too bad “casual” meant asking about Satan.

“So this devil guy. Is he, like, the real thing?” Tony asked as he picked up a socket wrench and walked back to the open hood of a beat up 1968 Chevelle, his forearms already sporting grease smears and dirt stains.  
Bobby nodded while simultaneously shrugging his shoulders. “As far as we can tell. He came up from the depths of hell itself, so I think it’s a pretty reasonable assumption.”

Stark scoffed. “You know, I’ve never claimed to be religious and this is a hell of a time for the universe to show me I’m wrong. Is he as powerful as everything says?”

“We haven’t met him face to face more than once, but that one time was enough to tell us we should be very worried. So, to answer your question, he’s _more_ powerful than everything says. Dean shot the bastard point blank in the head with the gun that can kill everything and he got back up a few seconds later mildly pissed off,” the older man answered. 

“Hmm. Well, he hasn’t met us yet,” Tony said quietly as he pulled a destroyed radiator out of the car. After looking over it for a few seconds, he threw it off to the side. Tony returned the wrench and pulled out a clear mini tablet from his pocket. He pressed on it a few times and then it started scanning the interior of the engine compartment. “How did you manage to own your own junk yard, by the way? This place is fantastic. If I had some of my tech from back home, I’d have half of these working in no time, not to mention with extreme upgrades.”

Bobby made a non-committal movement while eyeing what Tony was doing. “It’s kind of a long story. What exactly is that thing doing?”

His question was answered the moment he finished saying it when a three dimensional hologram of the engine and all of its present and missing parts popped up from the screen. Bobby couldn’t help but wheel himself forward to get a closer look.

Tony examined the hologram by turning it and enlarging it. Once he was satisfied, he tossed the device into Bobby’s lap and started walking towards one of the many piles of spare parts. “Go nuts. It’s pretty easy to figure out. I need to go find a few things.”

Bobby held the device uncertainly in his hands right before he started hearing shots go off in the house. He had to close his eyes for a few moments to avoid losing his calm. “If those boys break my house, I swear…” he muttered to himself before pouring himself another glass of scotch. In the distance, he heard Tony tossing parts over his shoulder as he attempted to find what he was looking for.

Back inside the house, Thor had somehow sensed another celestial type being in his presence and immediately gravitated to Castiel as soon as it was decided they were all working together. He inquired as to what realm Cas was from, to which the angel responded with “Heaven” even though his face clearly showed how confused he was by the question. 

“I do not believe that is a realm I am familiar with, but I am sure it is a good one! Are you an honored champion there, my friend?” Thor replied with a smile, grasping Castiel’s shoulder fondly. 

Cas looked away and shifted his weight uncomfortably. “No. I am no longer welcome there as I am a traitor for choosing the human race over my brethren.” 

Thor was quiet for a moment as he recalled the last time he was in Asgard. How angry his father was that he had brought Jane there. The disappointment that was turned on him when he said how much he believed he had to protect the humans on Earth, even at the cost of his right to rule. His grip on Castiel tightened sympathetically. “I understand how that feels, and I am sorry you have been cast aside so harshly from your family. But know that the battle you fight here is a worthy one, and I am honored to fight it by your side.”

Cas couldn’t help but smile at his words, and it was nice to find someone who seemed to be at least partially familiar with what he was going through. “Thank you,” he replied.

“Of course, my friend. Now come! Let us share stories of our courageous battles against the forces of evil!” Thor announced as he began pulling Cas towards the nearest table where they could sit together.

“I’m not sure I have many exciting stories to tell,” Castiel responded awkwardly.

“Then I will happily tell you mine!”

Between the gunshots and the loud boasting coming from Thor’s corner of the room, it took Sam a while to see that Bruce was quietly reading a few of Bobby’s books at the desk and seemed to be quite enthralled with them. Steve was standing next to him, nodding politely as Bruce would occasionally start a train of thought out loud about magical theory and how it could be scientifically explained. 

“It’s obvious that we were somehow pulled into an alternate dimension. What interests me is how. Scientifically, it makes sense that we would live in a multiverse that essentially has many different versions of itself stacked on top of one another, but for the  
magic in one to be able to pull something from another is much harder to explain.”

“But apparently, possible,” Steve replied matter-of-factly. 

Bruce nodded in agreement. “Yes, quite possible. But no records exist of it actually happening. So either the people who got pulled never returned, or this is the first time it has happened to our reality.”

“I’m kinda hoping for the second option. I’d rather not think about not being able to get home. There’s… someone I need to find there,” Rogers admitted quietly.

Bruce looked up at his friend compassionately. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure out a way back. Between all of us, there has to be a way. I just hope I don’t, you know, break this world before we go.”

“You’re too hard on yourself, Banner. Not everyone could deal with having a raging alter-ego in the same way you do. At least you recognize who’s good and bad and are able to channel that strength toward the correct people.”

Bruce sighed and took off his glasses before pinching the bridge of his nose. “Not always, Steve.”

Back in the present, another gunshot went off, making Sam rub his forehead in an attempt to stay calm. Upon hearing Sam’s doubts out loud, Steve excused himself from Bruce’s company to walk over to the younger Winchester. 

“Don’t worry, you aren’t the first person to see how this group operated in its down time and have doubts. I’m also pretty sure you won’t be the last. But once you see us working as a team in the field you’ll feel better,” the soldier said assuredly, making Sam look over in surprise. 

“To be honest, I’m more worried about my brother than your guys. I think he might be a bad influence.”

As if his words had somehow been heard, Dean suddenly shot by the two of them in close pursuit of Hawkeye, yelling, “It’s a bow and arrow! How freaking hard can it be?! Let me try it!”

“DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH IT, IT’S MINE!” Clint bellowed back as he ran with his bow and quiver held as far in front of him as possible.

Sam let out a sigh and outstretched his arm in presentation. “See?”

Steve just chuckled. “If it wasn’t Dean, it would just be something else, trust me.”

“You should listen to him, he’s very trustworthy,” Natasha pointed out, making Sam jump at the fact that she hadn’t been right next to him a few seconds ago. “Anyway, it’s good for Clint to meet new people. He doesn’t get out much.”

She had just finished her sentence when Clint and Dean made another pass around them, still running top speed and yelling at each other. Sam tried to not let his embarrassment for his brother’s behavior show. “I don’t want to push anyone, but I think the  
sooner we decide what we’re going to do the better,” Sam stated as he took in his surroundings. He had a feeling they would be caught off guard by something they weren’t ready for if everyone suddenly decided to stop paying attention.

Steve nodded. “Agreed. We’ll let everyone finish getting acquainted with each other first and then we’ll lay out a game plan.”

“Okay. Thanks,” Sam replied with a tight smile.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. We’ll help you through this yet,” Steve reassured him, his voice taking on a more tender tone.

“Yeah, we just need to keep you from making a deal with the devil. No pressure,” Natasha added, punching Sam playfully on the arm. Sam tried to not show how hard she’d actually hit him by laughing a little and nonchalantly rubbing the irritated flesh of his bicep. She smiled wide at him. “Now, where’s your food? I’m starving.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to finally write another chapter, my writing inspiration hasn't really been there, but I hope this at least sort of makes up for it. I'm really enjoying where this is going, and every time I make some headway I get overly excited at the fact that I never knew how much I needed this crossover until that moment. Mainly, the Thor/Cas friendship. I now have a mighty need for them to be best friends.   
> Anyway, thank you to all who have read this story and keep coming back to it as I slowly gain more traction with it! You guys keep me going!


	4. Walmart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The entire group goes on a shopping trip... and they will be back in a few hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am going to ask all of you to forgive me not only for taking forever to post this chapter but also for the ridiculousness of it. I swear I'm a better writer than this, and actual plot things will start happening next chapter, I just couldn't resist Avenger time at Walmart. So enjoy the playfulness and prepare for the pain that is inevitably coming. Thanks for reading!

It took all of five minutes to discover that there was no way they had enough food in the house for all ten of them (nine if the fact that Cas doesn’t eat is taken into consideration). 

“Dean!” Sam hollered over the grunts of Clint and Dean wrestling in the living room.

“What?” Dean yelled back through clenched teeth as he tried to get out of a headlock. 

“We need to go grocery shopping!”

Clint perked up at that. “Food?” he asked, momentarily distracted from Dean’s flailing limbs. In his five second window, Dean managed to land a hit and pulled away from Hawkeye’s grip enough to flip him onto the floor. Barton groaned for a moment. He knew full well he could jump back up and put Dean on the ground, but after hearing about food he realized how hungry he was and decided to do the honorable thing and end the match honestly. In other words, he lied. “Nice try, man, but I won. I’ll let you have a rematch later.”

Dean blinked for a minute as he helped Clint up. “What? I’m sorry did you miss the part where I just kicked your ass?”

“You didn’t kick anything, pal. I just let you think that. Now, about that grocery shopping…” Clint stated vaguely and he headed towards where Sam and Natasha were standing in the kitchen.

“No, no, no, you’re not just going to—” Dean started.

“Dean, there’s food to worry about, let it go,” Sam interrupted. 

Dean gritted his teeth for a moment before finally nodding his head from side to side as his stomach started growling. “All right, what’s the plan? Obviously you shouldn’t go alone, you never get anything good.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my food choosing skills! You’re the picky one.”

“Picky? How is not eating organic food picky?”

“Dean, all you eat is burgers and pie! It’s a wonder you don’t weigh three hundred pounds and have a heart condition!”

“Boys!” Nat warned loudly, arms crossed over her chest. “Get it together, I’m hungry. Let’s go.”

“Do not think to exclude me from your dinner adventures! I shall be going with you.” Thor announced happily as he strode towards them, rubbing his hands together. “We must get some of those cookies that you humans are so adept at making! They are my favorite.”

Steve appeared beside Thor, a smile on his lips. “I could go for some food, where are we going?”

“At the moment, nowhere. Can we decide who all is going, please? And exactly what car we’ll be taking that’ll hold everyone?” Clint interjected, his tone conveying annoyance.

“Four people besides me fit in the Impala,” Dean mentioned as he started counting people. “Cas? Bruce? You guys coming? And where’s Tony?”

At the mention of his name, the roar of an engine came to life followed by the sound of loud laughter. Stark came into the house a few moments later with a large grin on his face. “Just got the old Chevelle fired up, let’s go somewhere! What town are we even in?”

“We’re in South Dakota,” Bobby answered as he entered the room. It took maybe three seconds for him to see all the damage done by Dean, Nat, and Clint. “WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO MY HOUSE?” he bellowed, eyes flashing dangerously.

“Sorry Bobby, can’t talk right now, we gotta go to the store, but don’t worry we’ll get those beer nut you love, okay bye!” Dean said over his shoulder as he started shoving everyone out the door, the rest of the guests in hot pursuit of them. Once outside, they scattered and picked a car. Dean, Sam, Cas, Thor, and Nat ended up in the Impala, while Tony, Bruce, Steve, and Clint leapt into the Chevelle. Both cars took off as soon as their passengers were loaded, the echoing engines barely covering the sound of Bobby’s yelling. 

“Whew, that was a close one,” Dean chuckled, looking over at Sam.

Sam was less than amused, his expression turning into something resembling a resting bitch face. “We are going to Walmart, and you are getting him a new table and something to fill all those holes in the walls.”

Dean raised his eyebrows, his grin simply getting bigger. “Well, Sammy, you just tell me what you want and I’ll be sure to do it for you.”

Sam punched him in the arm and shook his head. “Dean, I’m being serious!”

“All right, all right! Sheesh.”

 

Twenty minutes later they arrived at their nearest friendly neighborhood Walmart. The sun was starting to set, casting an orange glow on the crew of warriors as they set off on their quest to find food, a new table, and putty for wall repair. As soon as they walked through the door, Natasha decided she was in charge of the cart and grabbed the largest one she could find. They hadn’t even made it twenty feet into the store before a random person stopped them to say how impressed they were at how authentic their costumes looked. The person then proceeded to take several pictures of them before wandering off. 

Clint shook his head. “Walmart is weird.”

“C’mon. Let’s get the non-food items first so the food is fresher when we leave,” Steve said, leading them towards the Home Improvement part of the store. Not that it mattered, because they ended up stopping in every other section anyway.

Here are a few things the Winchesters learned about shopping with the Avengers simply from walking to the other side of the store: Thor touches everything. Literally everything. If something catches his eye, he has to walk over to it and pick it up. It doesn’t matter what it is. He got so intrigued by a couple of remote control helicopters on display that he insisted the entire group stop and start a racing tournament with him (Tony won). If there is a flat and mildly comfortable looking surface other than the floor in the general vicinity of Barton, he will try to lay on it and take a nap. He also loves complaining almost constantly under his breath about how hungry he is and muttering about how far down the tubes society has gotten that there aren’t more free samples or at least free coffee. Tony will put anything he thinks he might use one day in the shopping cart. He’ll insist he needs it for a project because he’s away from his workshop, but no one needs that many hula hoops. Steve, while mostly quiet besides joking with his friends and yelling at Barton to “stop laying on that!”, will very often see something weird and stop walking for a moment to sigh and shake his head while muttering something under his breath. Having said that, though, he’s also a huge movie person. They spent at least ten minutes in the movie section and even though he kept saying they weren’t going to have very much free time considering their impending fight against the devil, he sneaked at least eight movies in the shopping cart. Bruce is a total music guru. While Steve was busy looking through the movies, he was over in the music section grabbing multiple CD’s, along with a new iPod, noise cancelling headphones, and a portable charger. He and Dean ended up getting into a friendly debate about classic rock that Tony eventually joined in on. Once they got to the car maintenance section, he kept making comments about which things you could mix together to create different kinds of explosions. This excited everyone in the group besides Castiel, who observed them with casual interest. Natasha is totally the mom of the group. She was the one who had to tell everyone to grab changes of clothes, toothbrushes, towels, etc. Despite that, if they ever turned down an empty aisle, she would immediately challenge someone to race her to the end of it, cart and all. Somehow, she always ended up winning, even though there had to be at least fifty pounds worth of stuff in that cart. She also rivaled Tony and Dean for most sarcastic comments made.

By the time they had actually gotten to Home Improvement and found a table and wall putty, the cart was full. They still had to do all of their food shopping, so Castiel offered to grab them another one. It hadn’t occurred to Sam and Dean until that moment that it had never really been explained to everyone that Cas was also an angel and could disappear and reappear at will, so when Cas suddenly poofed and then popped back up a moment later with an empty cart there was a bit of an outcry. Thankfully, the general consensus was “holy crap that was awesome, do it again and teach me your ways”. Cas looked around awkwardly, not really sure how to handle the attention he was suddenly getting, before Dean gave everyone the short version of Cas’ background.

“Well, it’s good to know that not all angels are looking to destroy the world,” Bruce commented afterwards, which everyone nodded their heads in agreement with. 

Finally, an hour later and a half later, they arrived in the food section. Thor had volunteered to drive the other cart, but after multiple times of him stopping to look at something and having everyone else move on unknowingly, Dean took the wheel. 

To no one’s surprise, everyone had different tastes in food. Steve went straight for protein—burgers and granola bars; Tony loaded about half the snack aisle into the cart; Bruce preferred fruit but also grabbed three bags of Chex mix (the chocolate kind); Natasha spent ten minutes deciding what kind of popcorn she wanted and then insisted everyone else get their own box (because she wasn’t sharing) before assembling everything she needed for at least two weeks of sandwiches; Clint doubled up on many of the things Nat was getting while looking offended that she wasn’t including him in her sandwich plan; Thor let out a triumphant laugh when he found the cookie section and also grabbed three rotisserie chickens just for himself; Sam got enough lettuce to feed an army, along with all kinds of vegetables and nuts to top it off with; Dean was giddy when he saw Steve grab the hamburger before he did and made sure to get everything else needed for the perfect burger, along with five pies so there was enough for him and everyone else; Cas simply watched everyone with idle curiosity as he had no need for food items.

When they all agreed that they were done, it was time to ring it all up. They almost felt sorry for the cashier since they had accumulated three carts worth of merchandise and it was pretty much anyone’s guess as to how they were going to pay for it all. But they all got through it (Tony paid) and before they knew it, it was nine o’clock at night and they had no idea how they were going to shove all their stuff into their two cars filled with people. 

“Well, crap. I guess we didn’t think this one through,” Dean said, rubbing his chin as they stood in a semi-circle around their cars, trying to think of something creative to do.

“Well yeah, Dean, that’s because you ruined Bobby’s house and we had to leave in a hurry,” Sam replied, not even trying to hide his annoyance.

Dean raised his eyebrows challengingly. “Hey, I wasn’t the only one shooting stuff, blame them!” he replied, pointing at Nat and Clint.

Natasha just crossed her arms across her chest as Clint immediately blurted “He started it!” at Dean.

“Okay! Let’s not fight about it. Let’s just start loading things in and see where we get after that,” Steve announced calmly but with a loud enough voice to also sound commanding. Everyone stopped arguing, though there was still a bit of grumbling and Tony looked like he was about to have started chanting “fight, fight!”, but soon afterwards they all started hauling bags from the carts and putting them in the trunks of the cars, starting with the largest stuff. When there was no more room, they still had about a full cart left over. 

“Let’s have the people get in the back seats and then put things on top of them,” Tony suggested.

“Shotgun,” Nat, Clint, and Sam all said at the same time. Barton looked at the other two for a millisecond before diving into the passenger side seat of Tony’s car. Natasha and Sam exchanged looks. 

“Rock, paper, scissors?” Sam suggested wearily. 

Nat shrugged before raising her arms and putting her fist in her palm at the ready. Sam mirrored the movement. They both tapped three times and then displayed their choice. Sam chose rock automatically from all of his experiences with Dean always choosing scissors. Romanoff, however, chose paper. 

She gave him a brilliant smile. “Don’t play a player, Sam. Ask Clint. He never wins.”

Barton stuck out his tongue at her from inside the car as she walked by and slid into the Impala. Dean let out a bark of laughter and slapped Sam on the back. “Dude, you just got owned by the Black Widow. This is awesome.”

Sam shot an “I will kill you” look to his brother before grudgingly going and sitting in the back seat. Thor and Cas joined him while Bruce and Steve got in the back of the Chevelle. Tony and Dean were the only two left outside of the cars, so they were in charge of fitting the rest of their newly bought merchandise in with their backseat passengers. 

“There’s technically more room in your car, since you have one less person,” Dean pointed out, and Tony nodded.

“Yup. Well, let’s put the bigger stuff in with me and your guys can hold the more… fragile stuff.”

“What all did you get, anyhow?” Dean asked, looking in a couple of the bags Tony had pointed out. 

Stark shrugged. “Eh, this and that. You never really know what you’re gonna need when the time comes. Something I’ve learned.”

“Jeez. Must be nice to be rich,” Dean muttered as he picked up four of the bags and handed them to Sam, who passed them down to Thor and Cas. 

Before they knew it, they were all loaded up and heading home. 

“Man,” Dean said, “I hope Bobby’s not still pissed.”


	5. The Plot Thickens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get a little... complicated.

The first thing they saw when they arrived back at the house was the front door ajar. The hinges were barely clutching to its point of gravity in the frame, the door knob bent at an uncomfortable direction. Sam and Dean immediately dropped what was in their hands and pulled out the guns they had stashed on their persons. Dean glanced carefully inside the door, peering around for immediate enemies, while Sam gestured for the rest of the group to stay back. Natasha pulled out her own gun and quietly shook her head, telling him there was no way she wasn’t going. Steve looked at her and then nodded curtly to Sam, indicating that was his stance as well, and Barton pulled out his own pistol and stood beside Nat. After running several scenarios in his head as quickly as possible, Sam silently agreed and then signaled them to be as quiet as possible and then mouthed for the rest of the group to check the perimeter. Thor nodded in understanding as Dean gave them the all clear and pushed open the door. 

The group moved like they had been working together for years. If one moved forward, another was next to them watching their back. Sam and Dean had grown up with a military father, and since they had gotten the most military of the Avengers with them, signing and signaling without talking was extremely easy. Steve, who had grabbed his shield the moment they were inside, understood his tactical advantage and would instantly be the first in a room if someone asked. Natasha and Clint used a standard “low high” procedure as they moved, making sure either way they wouldn’t be caught unawares. Slowly they started clearing the house, not finding any signs of Bobby or the impostors that had broken into the house. The more house they covered, the more worried they became. They descended downstairs to find what looked like a massacre. There were bodies everywhere, blood was still oozing slowly onto the floor, becoming tacky under their feet. At least a dozen pairs of lifeless eyes were looking up and every single one of them, and with no words uttered between any of them, the five individuals moved closer to one another.

Dean couldn’t hold it together anymore. “Bobby?!” he bellowed. “Bobby, where are you?”

“Dean?” came Bobby’s muffled voice. The group looked around, trying to find the source of the sound, but they didn’t have to look long because there was the sound of a heavy door being opened and then Bobby appeared in front of them. “Did you idjits forget that I have a panic room in my house?”

“Oh, Bobby, thank God,” Sam breathed, closing his eyes to take a deep breath. “We thought you were dead!”

“Not yet. It was their turn today,” Bobby muttered, waving a hand at the floor. 

Dean didn’t say anything, and instead walked up to the older man, dropped on his knees to be the same height, and hugged him. Bobby accepted the embrace instantly, and Dean received mild reassurance from the tightness of the embrace. When he pulled back, however, he looked pissed. “Never do that again!” Dean sputtered, trying to push of the could-have-beens out of his mind. Bobby simply nodded.

“Not to interrupt, but what exactly happened?” Steve asked, trying to not add the obvious “who are all these people you killed?” He couldn’t see anything different about the bodies, they all looked perfectly human to him, but he remained cautious. This was a strange world and he was unfamiliar with the threats that awaited him there.

“Croatoans,” Bobby answered uneasily. “Not sure where they came from, but they hit hard. I didn’t get all of them either, did you find the rest on the way in?”

There was a chilling pause.

“We didn’t find anything until we got down here and found you and… them,” Barton replied, looking at the floor when he mentioned “them”. “And not to be that guy, but what are Croatoans, anyway?”

“Zombies,” Dean, Sam, and Bobby all said at the same time.

The word had just left their mouths when they heard an explosion go off upstairs, followed shortly by Cas bellowing Dean’s name. “Son of a bitch,” Dean exhaled before launching himself towards the stairs. “I’m going to tell them what they’re dealing with, I need at least one of you to stay down here with Bobby.” 

“I don’t need protection!’ Bobby hollered after him, but he was already gone. 

The four left looked between each other before Steve spoke up. “I’ll stay behind. I’m sure we’ll be fine between the two of us. Go.” 

“We’ll send Bruce down to you. If it gets bad, we’ll call for you both,” Natasha told him before following Sam and Clint upstairs.

 

The bright blue glow of the arc reactor weapons coming from Stark’s Iron Man suit firing at an army of Croatoans against the black sky was the first thing that Dean saw when he ran out the back door upstairs. The second thing he saw was Thor casting lightning down from the heavens to electrocute half a dozen more on the other side of the junkyard. The light shone on his face amidst the darkness, and half the time the only reason Dean saw something happen was from the glow projected by Tony’s repulsor blasts. “This is so cool,” he said to himself, resisting the urge to take a picture and instead hurled himself into the action. 

“Don’t let them bleed on you! They’re chemically made zombies, and you get infected through blood!” Dean yelled above the noise of their destruction, shooting the three nearest to him in the head. 

“Yeah, we know. Angel Wings over there told us,” Tony reassured him as he hurled a zombie that had jumped on his shoulders across the field and into the open bed of a beat up Ford truck. “Ten points!”

“Castiel, you got four coming up behind you,” Barton announced as an arrow flew by Dean’s head, narrowly missing him to hit a Croatoan between the eyes. 

From the corner of his eye, Dean saw Cas turn and touch the foreheads of two zombies and fry them with grace as Natasha shot the other two point blank. With the exception of the super friends and that Cas still had his angel mojo, this entire situation was feeling eerily familiar. “No, no, no,” Dean said under his breath as he looked around, shooting two zombies that were making their way to Thor. “It’s not twenty fourteen yet, this can’t be happening already. Give me a damn break.”

“Dean!” Sam yelled a split second before Dean hit the deck to avoid being hit in the face by a zombified blonde woman dripping blood from multiple bullet wounds. She was wielding a very threatening looking machete, and raised her arms to swing it down on top of Dean just as an arrow hit her in the neck, causing electricity to course through her body and electrify her where she stood. Dean rolled away just before she hit the ground. He waved his hand at Hawkeye in thanks for him not using something more destructive that would have gotten blood all over him anyway.

“Where are they all coming from?” Romanoff asked when she got over to him, helping Dean up from the ground. 

He dusted himself off quickly before retrieving his weapon and holding it at the ready. “Honestly? I have no idea. They’ve been a problem before but we managed to contain it. And the only other time I saw it was… well, that’s a long story, but it’s probably related to Lucifer somehow. I just don’t know where, how, or how many more there are.”

“Looks like they’re starting to thin out, though. We should be done with them soon,” she commented as she took in the numbers surrounding them. “At least with this wave. Not sure if there’s more coming or not. I’ll go check.”

“Sounds good, we’ll watch your back.”

Natasha motioned for Hawkeye to follow her, and he got a running start to the destination she pointed out. Moments before she got there, he knelt down and gave her a step up to leap onto and climb up a pile of destroyed cars. “Barton, give me a light!” she yelled when she was at the top. He aimed for a moment before shooting an arrow right past her, just to have it explode with white light. It lasted for about ten seconds, but that was all she needed. She jumped off the pile and rolled as she hit the ground to pop back up and instantly be back in attack mode, crossing off five enemies in a matter of seconds. 

“No more zombies, at least coming from that side, but there was one guy just standing out there, watching. Didn’t get a good vibe from him,” Romanoff reported to Dean when she had made her way back to him.

Dean had to control his urge to roll his eyes as he thought about who it might be. “Short? Well dressed? British looking?” he asked, a clear image of Crowley popping up in his head. 

“Heads up!” Tony shouted to Thor before the Asgardian whipped around and smashed a zombie in the face with Mjolnir. 

“Well dressed, yes. Short, no. I’d peg him to be about your height, maybe a little taller. Know him?” Black Widow asked, the two of them not even looking at each other to keep their wits about them.

Dean shook his head. “Not off the top of my head, but it sounds like a demon. Means trouble for us, unless he isn’t planning on getting any closer than he is now.”

“Winchester,” an unfamiliar voice drawled from the man Natasha had referred to before his hand closed around Dean’s throat. He had beady eyes that were the same color as his mousey hair, which sat in a mop on top of his head. It looked like he had tried to comb it with a porcupine but gave up shortly after.

Natasha wasted no time firing four shots at the guy, clearly surprised when all it did was make him roll his eyes. She had just pulled out her extra clip when he summoned a small burst of power to telekinetically shove her away from him and his prey. Before his attention returned to the guy choking him, Dean saw Sam rush to Romanoff’s aid.

“Well, I would say ‘speak of the devil’ but you aren’t even close to being Lucifer, are you?” Dean managed to say with a smirk through the constricting grip on his neck. The demon gritted his teeth and Dean heard someone yell his name but he couldn’t tell who it was over the ringing in his ears.

“You’re lucky that I have strict orders not to kill you myself,” he spat. “I was only to release the virus and observe, though there were only supposed to be three of you here. Where did your reinforcements come from?”

“You really think I’m going to tell you?”

“I think you—” But he didn’t have a chance to finish his sentence due to being hit in the face by Mjolnir. Dean coughed and took a moment to catch his breath before turning to where Thor was walking towards him.

“Are you all right?” he asked gently. “I am sorry I was unable to come to your aid sooner.”

Dean waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it, thanks for the help.”

“Of course. Who was that man? He felt like… darkness encased in a human form,” Thor questioned, unable to hide the tremor of nervousness in his voice as his faithful hammer returned itself to his hand.

Dean shrugged and give a side to side nod. “Well, you’re not far off.” He looked over at where the demon had landed, but was surprised to see he was gone. Dean glanced around them to see if he could spot him, but the demon was nowhere to be found. “Where did that guy go? Anyway, I’ll give you the whole story once we’re clear.”

Thor assured him that he understood the wait before spinning his hammer and leaping over to where the fight was currently thickest. 

“Dean! Look out!” Castiel bellowed from across the field. 

Dean whipped his head around and saw another horde approaching from the opposite side Nat had cleared, and it looked like the one in front was holding a grenade. 

“Son of a bitch,” Dean muttered before he started running backwards. He didn’t get far, however, as he managed to trip over one of the dead bodies on the ground. “Crap. Crap, crap crap,” he said as he tried to get up without getting any blood near the surface of his skin.

Clint was closest, and when he saw Dean go down, he shot the grenadier down before it got any closer to give them a window and made a run for him. “Get up, man, come on!” Barton urged, grabbing the other man by the arm to help hoist him up.  
The two of them had just started running to safety when the explosion hit, knocking both of them forward. Dean hit his head hard against the hood of a car and was instantly knocked out. Clint was able to narrowly miss a tree but ended up landing on a bent knee. There was a loud snap sound, and he knew that something was either broken or seriously hurt. “Damn it,” he hissed as he pulled himself into a sitting position and leaned back against the tree he almost hit, gaining control over the pain he was feeling.

Cas was the first one to get to the both of them. He had to run after using so much of his grace but he had a little in reserves for fixing minor wounds. The hope was whatever happened to Dean was minor enough for him to fix. As soon as he got in range he fell to his knees and gripped Dean’s shoulders to pull him away from the car and get a good look at him. Cas was able to sense little about him, other than he was unconscious. “Dean?” he questioned hesitantly. “Dean!” His voice was stronger the second time, and after a few shakes from the angel, Dean’s eyes started opening. 

“Cas? Cas, ow, stop shaking me, my head feels like it’s on fire.”

“You probably have a concussion,” Castiel stated blandly, though the relief on his face from his friend waking up was apparent. “Let me fix it, hang on.”

“No, I’ll be fine, Cas, save your grace. It’s okay,” Dean insisted, slowly getting himself propped up on his shoulders. 

“But Dean—”

“Cas, no.”

“Oh my god, guys, I ripped my knee almost in half and you’re over there flirting. If you’re not going to heal him would you at least heal me so I can walk away and give you guys some privacy? For crying out loud,” Barton complained loudly as the rest of the group arrived at the site of the wounded. 

Dean winced at the loudness of Clint’s voice, while Castiel looked taken aback by his statement, but Cas leaned over anyway and touched Clint’s head with two fingers, instantly mending his broken leg. Barton muttered a quick thank you before standing up and gingerly walking towards the house, muttering something about taking a shower. 

“That grenade seemed to wipe out the rest of them, at least as far as we can tell. They must have really wanted to get rid of your guys,” Tony said, opening the front of his mask. “And I took care of the mini forest fire they caused. You’re welcome.” 

“I think it is time we learned more about our foes,” Thor stated, looking between Sam and Dean.

Sam nodded. “Absolutely. Let’s get back in the house. We’ll tell you everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha ha! Actual plot! Victory! I'm surprised by how quickly I cranked this out, but I guess I was just inspired. Hopefully you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.


	6. Sleeping in the Impala

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers finally get the answers they're looking for, but first, they gotta eat.

To no one’s surprise, Bobby made everyone make the house presentable before any talks happened, so the group spent two hours filling holes, painting walls, fixing the front door, disposing of bodies, cleaning the floor, putting the groceries away that hadn’t been smashed, and putting together the new coffee table. After Thor had put the table together and then taken it apart three times because it wasn’t standing correctly, jokes were made about how they should have gotten the table from IKEA so that Thor could actually understand the instructions. Everyone laughed and agreed except a very confused Cas (“What is IKEA? I do not understand.”). 

Once all that was finished, they finally got around to making their food. Considering it was after eleven o’clock at night by the time the house was back to its old self, Sam offered to hold off on the hunter business until the next morning when everyone was well rested. While everyone was eager for answers, the call for sleep after a very long and confusing day was too strong to ignore. So as the avenging crew started preparing a large meal for everyone, Sam and Dean took it upon themselves to find sleeping accommodations for everyone. Not a particularly easy task, considering Bobby was the only person who currently lived there and didn’t need an excess of blankets or pillows or makeshift beds. 

“We should have gotten more of this crap while we were at Walmart,” Dean muttered under his breath as he and Sam searched every closet they could find for sleeping essentials. 

“Bobby is usually prepared for anything, but I doubt he saw this coming, Dean,” Sam pointed out.

Dean rolled his eyes but didn’t respond.

Eventually, they discovered enough to cover everyone that wasn’t going to be on a guest bed and headed back towards the kitchen with their new found supplies. Dean nearly dropped his pile of blankets when he saw all of the food that was being spooned onto and into various enormous plates and bowls. There was an entire bowl dedicated to macaroni and cheese that Clint had made, Natasha had somehow managed to fry about a dozen hot dogs on the stove that were the best looking hot dogs Dean had ever seen, Bruce ended up pulling together a quick fried rice recipe, Thor was just taking two pans of chocolate chip cookies out of the oven, Tony had dumped a bag of chopped lettuce into a bowl and mixed in some cranberries and a few kinds of nuts in an attempt to spruce up his addition, and Steve, while not being a bad cook, had decided to instead pull several tables together and set up plates and silverware for everyone while also helping take over all of the food. 

Both Sam and Dean were speechless at the sight. When Bobby caught sight of them staring, he cleared his throat softly to get their attention. 

“Weird, ain’t it?” Bobby said. “I’ve never seen so many people in my kitchen.”

“How did they do all of that so quickly?” Sam asked, aghast.

“Dude, this is like that time you won that all you can eat thing because of that rabbit’s foot,” Dean said, tapping his brother’s shoulder with the back of his hand. Sam shook his head but couldn’t exactly disagree with him. 

“If you guys are done staring, we could use some help,” Natasha called over her hand towel-clad shoulder as she started pulling mildly squashed buns out of a bag. 

This seemed to shake the boys out of their shocked state and they both quickly set down their piles of pillows and blankets and walked over to be of assistance. It didn’t take two seconds for multiple people to start shoving things into their arms, whether it be Clint with glasses of water or Bruce with overflowing bowls of food. With all of them pitching in together, it only took about five more minutes for everything to be on the table and ready to eat. 

To someone on the outside of the house looking in, it probably looked like the group had known each other for years. Everyone passed around the food to each other, jokes were constantly being made so laughter was a continuous sound to be heard, every single person was smiling, and not once was the fight from earlier mentioned. It was the happiest a lot of them had been in a long time. Even Cas, who wasn’t eating but still sitting politely at the table with everyone, seemed to be having a good time.

Eventually, the chatter started to die down as people got more and more sleepy, and it was about twelve-thirty when Steve decided to call it a night. Half of the group started putting the food away and piling the dishes in the sink while the other half allowed Sam and Dean to show them all where they were sleeping. Once both tasks were accomplished, the brothers bid all of them good night before heading out to the Impala. 

“Where are you guys going?” they heard Steve ask in a hushed tone just before they opened the front door. They both turned and looked at him with mild surprise.

“We’re giving you all the bed and floor space we have, so we’re sleeping in the car. Don’t worry about it, we sleep in there all the time, we’re used to it,” Dean replied in the same quiet voice with a thumbs up. Sam nodded along with him as reassurance. 

Steve’s jaw clenched slightly. “We don’t need to throw you out of your own house. I’m sure we can find you a place in here. Besides, shouldn’t one of us stay up and keep watch in case your Croatoans come back for us in the middle of the night?”

“Steve, we appreciate your concern, but we’re really fine. We’ve slept in much worse places,” Sam insisted. 

“And we have Cas to make sure no one sneaks in here to kill everyone. He doesn’t sleep,” Dean added, still a little startled that Steve was making a big deal out of this.

Steve took a deep breath before replying. “Look, it’s dangerous to have us be separated in case something happens. And I’ve slept in worse places too, but that doesn’t mean that you guys should have to be out in the cold.”

“Dude, I pretty much prefer sleeping in the Impala above almost everywhere else. It’s really not a huge deal. And the seat cushions are a lot comfier than the floor, so believe me, you’re actually probably getting the worse end of the deal, here,” Dean assured him, taking a few steps towards the soldier and giving him a lopsided grin. “And in terms of danger, we can handle ourselves if something happens, and I’ve now seen firsthand the kind of damage you and your friends can do when you’re threatened, so I bet that if something was stupid enough to crawl in here, it would immediately regret it.”

Steve appeared to be wrestling with something in his mind when he looked away and didn’t answer immediately, but what Dean said seemed to have convinced him and he finally nodded. “Okay. Well, be careful out there, and don’t be afraid to ask one of us to switch with you,” he conceded, turning away and walking towards where the sound of loud snores they assumed to be Thor’s were coming from.

Sam frowned, still a little confused by everything that had just happened, but when Dean turned and shrugged at him before heading out the door, Sam followed him. They made sure to lock their new front door before settling down in the Impala like the good old days. The two were asleep within minutes.

 

They were both woken up to the sound of Tony knocking on the back window. Sam jumped and pulled a gun out of his back pocket while Dean tried to leap backwards, only to run right into the steering wheel and make the car emit a loud honk. 

“Rise and shine, sweethearts. Time for you to explain a few things,” Tony announced before walking back to the house, cup of coffee in hand.

Sam and Dean took a few moments to register what had just happened before Dean finally spoke. “Y’know, I was really kind of hoping this was all a really weird dream I had last night,” he confessed, rubbing his eyes in an attempt to wake up.

Sam nodded. “I hear you. I guess we should go enlighten them, though.”

Dean let out a long sigh and then opened the car door. Sam followed suit and the both of them walked back into Bobby’s house feeling sore but no worse for wear. The sight of all the Avengers milling around in pajamas was the first thing that met their eyes, and they had to stop and stare.

“You guys look so… normal,” Sam said before he could stop himself. Steve and Natasha, who were the closest to them, chuckled.

“Did you think we lived in our uniforms?” Steve asked as he took a sip of his coffee from where he sat at the table. 

Sam and Dean opened their mouths to say no, but no sound came out of either one of them. Dean let out a half-laugh and shook his head before turning towards the coffee pot and letting Sam handle the situation. Sam looked wildly from Dean to Steve, trying to get some help from his brother, but when he received none he smiled and laughed awkwardly at Steve. 

“Uh, kinda, I guess. You guys just don’t seem like the type of people that ever do anything… ordinary.”

“I don’t blame you. We are pretty extraordinary,” Tony interjected before Steve had a chance to reply, placing a hand on the super-soldier’s shoulder. “Now, about that hunter business…”

It took about two hours and a large dry erase board to explain as quickly and as detail oriented as possible all the important things of being a hunter, along with all the information on current issues. How salt worked against unholy things, how to banish angels with the blood sigils, holy water, iron vs. ghosts, salt and burn, angel blades, the demon knife, the Colt, anti-possession tattoos, and so on. Their audience listened politely and attentively through the entire presentation, waiting until the very end to ask their burning questions. To the hunters’ surprise, almost all the questions were more practical.

“What kind of metal is that angel blade made out of and can I have one?” Tony asked first, eyeing the holy weapon.

The boys looked to Castiel, who had the most to lose from letting someone they hadn’t known very long run amok with such a thing, but the angel gradually nodded. “I am not sure what it is made of, but you may borrow one,” he replied solemnly. The sentence had barely finished escaping his mouth when Tony leapt forward and grabbed it, turning it over gingerly in his hands. 

“Would that thing kill the devil?” Bruce asked next, watching Tony like a hawk. 

Sam half-shrugged. “We honestly don’t know. Our problem would be getting close enough to try.”

“What about the Four Horsemen? Do you know where the next one is?” questioned Clint. “Might be a good idea to take them down if it means it hurts Lucifer in the long run.”

“Pestilence? No, we don’t know where he is right now. However, judging by how the Croatoan thing is a virus, and we just got attacked by those yesterday, it’s not a stretch to think he’s probably close by,” Dean answered. 

“Is there a way to have the anti-possession protection without getting a tattoo?” Natasha inquired. “I don’t plan on being here forever, so it would be nice to not have to have something weird like that on me until the end of time.”

“Yeah, absolutely. There are charms that will keep possession at bay, we’ll find you guys some. You just have to make sure that they don’t fall off or get ripped off by something,” Sam offered reassuringly.

“Those sigils you spoke of, they must always be drawn from blood?” Thor asked, his brow furrowed. 

“Yeah, it’s a pain. Literally,” Dean said, laughing at his own joke. 

Steve looked around the room, from where Tony was still analyzing the angel blade to where a poorly drawn anti-possession tattoo was on the white board in front of him. It was a lot to take in, but he eventually nodded curtly. “Well, it looks like we’re gonna have to upgrade.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap, this took forever and a day to do, I'm so sorry. These chapters where not a lot happens are the worst for me, so I apologize for not only the lateness but how kinda boring this chapter is. Some action will happen in the next one, I promise, and it definitely shouldn't take as long to write.


	7. Dean Finds a Case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean gets a lead on a case, and the Avengers come along for the ride.

The next few days were surprisingly quiet. Tony spent most of his time outside with what little equipment was available, while everyone else was learning basic hunting skills from Bobby and the Winchesters. They would cycle through reading up on lore (which Clint constantly complained about and ended up making origami animals with pieces of parchment instead), being shown angel warding and sigils from Cas (they only banished him on accident a couple of times), and learning how to incapacitate and/or kill different creatures they may or may not run into while out and about. It was the end of the world, after all. Anything could happen.

When Tony finally came back inside to join the group for more than just alcohol or meals, he came bearing gifts. They had just started taking a break, so everyone else was sitting around the table with light chatter, but the talking ceased as soon as they saw Tony walk in with a large box and multiple hula-hoops hanging from his neck. He dropped the box onto a nearby chair but decided to leave the hula-hoops where they were. Tony wiped his hands on his pants briefly before looking around proudly at the group. “Okay, everyone, gather ‘round. I have new stuff for all of you. First things first,” he said as he threw gloves into everyone’s laps where they sat, “all of your working gauntlets are now iron and silver plated, so you can punch ghosts and other such things in the face. Why screw around, right? I also made special salt pouches to go on utility belts, because we all know how much Steve likes pouches on belts.”

There was a wave of laughter as Steve rolled his eyes. “Hey, they are very handy—”

“Shh, don’t interrupt,” Tony continued, hitting Steve lightly in the chest with what was assumed to be a brown pouch of salt. “I also customized these,” he said as he pulled out a handful of silver spheres with multiple lenses across the surface, “so when you toss them on the ground they’ll holo-project a Devil’s Trap above anywhere that has a higher than normal sulfur reading in the air.”

“Dude, that’s cool as hell,” Dean breathed, eyeing the devices from where he was in the kitchen. As much as he wanted to take an up-close look at them, though, he needed to talk to Sam. Tony was just showing off the salt hula-hoops when Dean pulled his brother into the kitchen where they could talk quietly. 

“What? I thought you were enjoying all of these new gadgets,” Sam said, confused.

“It’s not that, I just… I think I have a case. Hunter out in Lincoln caught it but is otherwise occupied and sent it to us,” Dean explained in a low voice, continuing to glance over at the group to keep tabs on what Tony was showing them. 

Sam continued to be at a loss and shifted his weight. “So? What’s the problem?”

“What’s the problem? Sam, these guys aren’t hunters, okay? We take them out there, who knows what will happen. And really, I’m almost more worried about what would happen if we just left them here.” As if on cue, Tony attempted to demonstrate his “salt and burn” bomb and accidentally set the table on fire. There was the muffled sound of Bobby yelling what the commotion was about and the group scrambled to put the fire out while Natasha calmly called back that everything was fine. Steve ended up having to put his shield over the flames to smother it right after Bruce dumped a glass of water on it. Tony muttered something about a dummy and a fire extinguisher before getting back to what he’d been talking about.

Sam closed his eyes and tried to not sigh before resuming his conversation with Dean. “Look, I get you point, Dean, but these guys are warriors. The best of the best. I’m sure they can handle anything we throw at them. What’s the case?”

“Seems to be a run of the mill haunting. Reports of cold spots, things moving without people touching them, disembodied voices, lights flickering, all going back a while before the killing that happened yesterday.”

Sam shrugged. “I say we go for it. Haunting is the best thing to start with, and we’ll be there to make sure no one dies horribly or anything. Besides, I think everyone is itching to get out of the house.”

Dean rubbed his forehead and sighed before nodding. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

A small smile spread across Sam’s face. “Of course I’m right.”

“Shut up.”

The two walked back to the group where Tony was just pulling out his last piece of equipment from the bottom of his box. “And Barton, these are for you. Arrows tipped with iron, salt, silver, and the metal from an angel blade.” Castiel perked up at the mention of the angel blade arrows and walked over to investigate. Tony’s stature changed from bubbly to reserved as he eyed Cas closely. “Yeah, uh, I hope you don’t mind that I melted down the blade you let me look at. I figured you probably have another one stashed somewhere in that hideous coat of yours for emergencies.” 

Cas nodded, seemingly unaware of Stark’s jab at his clothing, and picked up one of the arrows to look at it closer. “Yes, I do. And these should work, given you have the correct aim and enough momentum.” Tony tried to not look overenthusiastic in his response to Castiel’s approval while Clint grabbed all of the arrows excitedly and went over to where his bow and quiver were propped against the wall to make sure he had the new arrows included when he went into battle next. 

Sensing a lull in the conversation, Dean decided to take his opportunity to speak up. “Hey, sorry to interrupt, but Sam and I caught a case and we thought you guys might be interested in coming along and getting some on-the-job experience.” There were overall sounds of approval, some more excited than others, but everyone seemed eager to get out and do something. Even Bruce seemed pretty intrigued over the idea of an actual supernatural case. Seeing this made Dean continue. “All right, it looks like it’s gonna be a pretty standard vengeful spirit job, so remember we’re gonna need salt and iron when we actually face it. We’ll let you borrow EMF detectors when you’re investigating the place itself.”

“The other thing is our cover stories,” Sam added, making Dean nod in agreement. “Generally Dean and I go in as FBI; keeps things simple and more often than not, whoever is in charge there is more than happy to drop a weird case into the laps of the government. Now, two of them is easy to believe. Eight? Not so much. So, we’re going to want to be smart about this.”

“We did get lucky and our case is in a hotel, which means if we all check in with different groups, it’s going to seem less suspicious,” Dean continued. “And everyone asks weird questions about hauntings at hotels, especially right after someone dies. People are naturally curious about crap like that, so no one is going to think twice about why you’re asking them a bunch of strange questions.”

“Another bonus to hotels is we can walk around at all hours of the night and day without having to worry about being accused of breaking into anywhere. Well, besides the rooms we’re technically not supposed to be in,” Sam said. 

This made Steve frown. “Do you break into places often?”

Dean laughed quietly. “Oh, buddy, you have no idea.”

Natasha turned her head to look at the good captain. “Steve, we need to get you out more often. And stop acting so offended, you know you broke into plenty of places on missions for S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Hey, I had authority to do those things, I wasn’t a civilian doing it for kicks,” Steve retorted.

“Well, if it makes you feel better, it’s for a good cause,” Sam assured him, smiling awkwardly. 

“Anyway,” Dean spoke quickly before an ethics argument broke out, “the plan is I take two people with me as FBI to ‘officially’ question witnesses, Sam will take several of you as ghost chasers to check out the scene, and the remaining few will check in at the hotel under whatever cover you prefer and start researching any known killings at the place. You can all decide amongst yourselves who is going in which group while Sam and I replenish our supplies.” 

He nodded to Sam, who went out to check the trunk of the Impala to see what they needed, and when the Avengers started debating who was a better candidate to be FBI, Dean walked over to Cas and grabbed him lightly by the elbow to guide him to the next room. “Hey, I’m going to need you to stay here with Bobby. This shouldn’t be a hard case, and after what happened last time, I don’t want him left alone.”

Cas looked mildly offended, eyebrows scrunched together and eyes squinting more than usual. “Dean, Bobby was more than capable of taking care of himself during the last attack. And what makes you think they would try again after how poorly it went for them last time?”

“Look, if it’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that demons will always attack if they think someone’s vulnerable, no matter what. And their failure last time just means they would come back twice as strong. So please, Cas, please stay here. Help Bobby research the apocalypse. Keep him safe, and let me know immediately if something seems even a little bit off. I will call if I need anything, I promise,” Dean pleaded, not noticing that his hand had never gotten around to dropping from its place on Castiel’s arm. 

Cas glanced briefly at it before looking back at Dean and grudgingly nodding. “Okay. I will stay.”

Meanwhile, Sam had just come back in the house when Tony intercepted him in the kitchen. “Hey, uh, I don’t want to be that guy but I was just wondering, is staring deeply into each other’s eyes something that those two do regularly?” he asked, tilting his head towards where Dean and Cas stood together in the hallway. 

Sam let out a long sigh before replying. “You have no idea what I put up with from those two.”

 

About twenty minutes later, they were on the road. Everyone had dressed according to their covers and had their own bag filled with everything they would need to sort out a haunting, and thanks to Tony, that included a few new gadgets. Dean was driving the Impala with his “FBI partners”, aka Steve and Thor, while Tony was behind the wheel of the Chevelle with everyone else. The plan for them was for Bruce and Tony to get their own room for researching (with the help of JARVIS it was going to be pretty easy for them) and Sam was going to investigate the hotel with Clint and Natasha. Despite the fact that the trip from Sioux Falls, South Dakota to Crofton, Nebraska was an almost two hour trip, both cars were unusually quiet. An occasional question was posed to one of the Winchesters, but for the most part the only thing to be heard was the radio.

When they finally arrived, the three parties never interacted with each other, as if they had never met, already initiating their cover stories. It was show time.

\----

Dean handed Steve and Thor two FBI badges out of the trunk of the Impala and assessed both of their appearances. They’d both donned their own suits and looked pretty presentable. At least enough so that they would pass as humble servants of the government. “Just follow my lead, okay? And remember, you guys are the government. If you act like you own everything, people will believe you,” Dean told the two of them quietly before closing the trunk and sticking his keys in his pockets. “Now, let’s go find us a ghost.”

There was a police car stationed in front of the hotel when they walked up to the entrance, and that’s where Dean walked to first. Steve was pulling at his tie uncomfortably as they walked, while Thor had donned a grim expression and had his hands firmly in his pockets. A grey-haired officer was just walking out the front door when the trio got to the car and Dean waved him over. 

“Something I can do for you boys?” the officer asked when he got to them. He looked tired, but not the kind of tired from not sleeping well. The kind where he had seen too much from his time on the job. Despite that, though, his dark eyes were kind and his haircut suggested he was former military.

“Hi there,” Dean greeted, taking his badge out of his pocket. “I’m Agent Mason. This is Agent Allman,” Steve nodded, “and Agent Gordon,” Thor stood like a statue, eyes assessing the area. Dean did a double take with him before frowning slightly with confusion. After a second, he managed to drag his focus back to the officer to finish what he was saying. “FBI. We understand you have a body that was killed under unusual circumstances?”

The officer smiled at them, visibly relieved. “I’m sure glad you boys are here. Officer Denton, nice to meet you,” Denton responded, shaking the three agents’ hands. He paused when he got to Thor, who didn’t immediately put his hand out to shake until Steve elbowed him, and even after he did it was like Thor was trying to have a stare-down with the guy.

Dean briefly pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sorry, he’s, uh, new.”

Denton acknowledged Thor wearily before turning his attention back to Dean. “No problem. To be honest, I’m more than happy to turn this case over to you guys. It’s a bit outside my comfort zone.”

“Why? What happened?” Steve asked curiously.

“It’s the strangest thing,” Denton started, avoiding eye contact. “This guy checked in a few days ago and everything was fine until last night when the hotel staff started hearing shouts coming from his room. They tried to get in, but the door was somehow   
jammed and wouldn’t open. By the time they managed to break in, his cries had stopped and he was nowhere to be found.”

“I thought you said there was a body,” Thor spoke menacingly. “Were you lying to us?”

“Tho—Agent, calm down, I’m sure he was just getting to that part,” Dean said quickly, letting out an awkward chuckle before giving Thor a meaningful look. Thor noticed it and seemed to loosen up a little but kept his serious expression. Dean resisted the urge to shake his head and instead looked back at Denton.

“Uh, yeah. The, uh, only reason we found the body was because when the staff opened the closet they found half his arm sticking out of the wall, hand still outreached.” The entire group’s eyebrows raised in unison. Denton looked nervous. “It was like he was dragged into the foundation of the wall itself. I didn’t get here until this morning when it was reported, apparently there was some discussion on what to do between the hotel managers, but since then we’ve carefully opened the wall and found… well, the rest of him.”

“Is the body still in the wall or has he been taken to the morgue?” Dean asked, pulling out a mini notepad and writing a few things down.

“Still here at the moment, we only got the wall down about half an hour ago. Hotel manager was insistent we try to keep as much of it intact as possible, so it took longer than usual.”

“Do you mind if we take a look?” Steve questioned while Dean continued to scribble a few notes.

“Hell no, the scene is all yours now. Good luck. Oh, here’s my number if you have any more questions, but I’m sure whatever you need to know you can find out from the people who were working here last night,” Denton answered, handing Thor a business card before hurriedly shuffling to the driver’s side of his car. He took off a few seconds later, and the three of them were left alone outside the Argo.

Dean put his notepad away before rounding on Thor. “Dude, you are the worst FBI agent I have ever seen. Worse than Cas, even, what the hell were you doing?”

“You said that we were to pretend we owned the world, so I was acting like my father does in times of crisis, as he is the king and ruler of Asgard,” Thor responded proudly, smiling as he remembered his performance. “Was that not what I was supposed to do?”

Dean’s brow furrowed in frustration. “No, man, you need to also relate to people, make them feel comfortable enough with you that they’ll tell you anything. Scaring them is a tactic to use when they aren’t cooperating. Though, I suppose you have that skill going for you, so we’ll keep that in mind for later, but get it together and be friendly, okay? But not so friendly that people think you’re a pushover. Just… be like Steve, he did great.” And with a large eyeroll, Dean headed towards the door and walked in, leaving Thor confused and Steve feeling mildly proud of himself. The two quickly followed Dean into the building, anxious to see where the case was going to go.

\-----

“Okay, guys, let’s do this,” Sam said to Natasha and Clint, nodding to Tony and Bruce who were still in the car, and glancing over to where Dean was just getting out of the Impala. The three of them power walked to the hotel entrance, making sure they were the first ones inside. Clint was mumbling to himself the entire way and only Natasha seemed to notice, giving him a weird look. 

“Jacket too tight?” she asked in a low voice.

He stared at her, surprised. “What? Oh. No, uh… it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“Uh huh. Whatever you say.”

They saw a police officer standing at the front desk when they walked through the doors and they were more than happy to include him in the conversation.

“Is it true that some sort of apparition was responsible for what happened last night?” Sam asked the receptionist eagerly, while also making furtive glances at the officer. 

“Yeah, did you see it? What did it look like?” Nat interjected before the receptionist could reply. She turned her gaze to the police officer. “Or you? Did you see it?”

The policeman shook his head and grumbled. “I’m headed out for some coffee, Jillian, call me if you need something.”

Jillian, who looked like the last thing she wanted to deal with were crazy ghost people (least of all without police backup), managed to get out a couple stutters before the officer walked out of the front doors. She then had no choice but to acknowledge the trouble in front of her. “Hello, welcome to the Argo. What can I help you with?” she asked politely, obviously hoping to get them away from the topic of the murder.

“Ghosts, woman, ghosts!” Clint blurted, slamming his hand down on the desk, making Jillian jump and causing her glasses to fall off the bridge of her crooked nose. “What say you?”

Jillian cleared her throat and slowly adjusted her glasses before answering. “I’m sorry, I’ve been instructed not to talk about the crime at hand to anyone other than the authorities or paying customers. So unless you are here for a room, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Of course we would like a room, we apologize,” Sam responded, putting a hand on his chest to show his sincerity. 

Obviously not fooled, Jillian gave him a tight smile before starting to type into her computer. “All right, and how many rooms will that be?”

“One, obviously,” Clint responded, crossing his arms over his chest. “We need to stick together for when the lights start flickering and the ghosts come calling!” 

Natasha slid a glance over to Barton. “Yes, we would hate to split up and make it think it could catch us off guard. After all, you never know when they’ll…” she suddenly grabbed Clint for emphasis, “snatch you.”

Clint jumped and made a strangled noise in the back of his throat before moving over to the other side of Sam and away from Natasha, glaring the whole way over. It was hard for Nat to hold back her laughter, but she managed to keep an entirely straight face.

The speed at which Jillian was typing increased exponentially. “Okay, I have you in a room on the fifth floor--”

“Is that the same floor as the murder?” Sam pressed. “We really need to be in the same area. For the psychic energies to reach us, you know.”

“Yes,” Jillian responded through clenched teeth, “That is the same floor. Here are your keys, room 525, the elevator is to your left. Thank you, have a nice day.”

“Perfect! Let’s go set up,” Natasha said gleefully, snatching the key cards from the desk and practically dragging the boys with her to the elevators. “Thank you, Jillian! I’m sure we’ll be talking to you more!”

Sam heard Jillian let out an exasperated breath as they got on the first available elevator. As soon as the doors closed, Clint pressed the button for the fifth floor.

“That poor woman,” Barton sighed, shaking his head. 

“Hey, most of that was your fault. What did you have to be all loud for?” Romanoff retorted, looking at him like he was crazy.

“I wasn’t loud!”

“Clint, you yelled ‘ghosts’ in her face and called her ‘woman’ before practically putting your hand through her desk. How else would you define the word ‘loud’?”

Sam chuckled quietly while Clint started muttering something incoherent. “Hey, you guys did good. Let’s go put our stuff in the room and start checking the area for clues. Dean should be getting to the crime scene soon, so we’ll meet him there after checking out the rest of the floor.”

\-----

“All right, JARVIS, start collecting all the data you can find on this place,” Tony said, holding his phone up so the camera could view the outside of the hotel. He and Bruce had watched both Sam’s group and Dean’s group go into the hotel and now they were about to come into play. 

“So, Tony, do we have a story on why we’re here if they ask why we only want one room?” Bruce asked as they started getting out of the car. 

“Besides the fact that we’re madly in love?” Tony replied with a smirk, chuckling when Bruce started blinking with confusion. “I’m kidding, Banner. How about a business trip and it doesn’t make sense to get two rooms if we’re just going to be working the entire time?”

“I, uh… yeah. That’s, um, just fine,” the doctor replied, still trying to reign in his reeling mind. 

Tony patted his friend affectionately on the back. “C’mon, buddy, let’s go catch a ghost. God, that sounds weird. Y’know, I still kinda feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop and have this entire thing be some crazy nightmare that I’m having. Do you feel that way?”

Only half paying attention, Bruce shrugged. “Sure, I guess.”

“So you’re saying that none of this feels strange to you?”

“I didn’t say that,” Banner said as they pushed open the front doors of the Argo. 

“So what are you saying?” Tony pressed.

“I’m saying that we should just get our room so that this nice lady doesn’t have to listen to us argue. After all, if what we heard is true, she’s probably gotten more than enough crazy people in here asking questions,” Bruce said diplomatically, gesturing to the receptionist but not taking his eyes off of Tony. 

Stark, however, had no problems looking right at the poor woman. “Hello, there…” he looked at her nametag, “Jillian. One room, two beds, please. We’re on a business trip. Right dear?” he said, looking at Bruce when he said “dear”. 

It was all he could do to not punch Tony where he stood, so Bruce opted to instead sigh loudly and apologize to Jillian for his friend’s rudeness. 

Jillian shook her head. “Trust me, you guys are pretty much the tamest people I’ve had today. Here are your keys, you are in room 317 on the third floor.”

“Lovely, thank you so much,” Banner said politely before the two of them headed towards the elevators. Once they were safely inside, Tony clicked the button for the third floor and pulled out his phone.

“Where d’you suppose everyone else ended up?” Stark asked as he started assessing the data JARVIS had pulled for him.

“Who knows. What did you find out?”

“Something kinda creepy. Let’s put our stuff in the room and go find the others.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I've decided I'm going to stop saying the next chapter won't take as long as the last, because every time I do that it ends up taking me forever to write. So, I humbly apologize and hope that this chapter has been worth the wait. Obviously, the next chapter will be a continuation of this case, and I did actually do my research when I came up with this. There is, in fact, and Argo Hotel in Crofton, Nebraska that people believe to be haunted. At least, that's according to the internet, so who knows. I will also be taking liberties when it comes to what the hotel looks like. There has to be fiction somewhere, right? Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I am working on the next one as we speak.


	8. The Man in the Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The groups meet back up as they discover the root of the evil haunting the hotel.

The first thing Dean noticed when he walked into the motel was how frazzled the receptionist looked. His mind wandered momentarily to Sam and his group, but didn’t think they would be weird enough to shake her up like this. A moment later he remembered how terrible Thor was at the whole “undercover” thing, and decided that there was a high possibility that it could have been them. Either way, he needed to talk to her. 

“Afternoon, ma’am, FBI Agent Mason, I’d like to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind,” Dean started, smiling courteously at her. 

The woman, Dean noted her name was Jillian, immediately looked distressed. “Oh no, you too?” she sighed, rubbing her temples. 

“Are you all right?” Thor queried softly, holding his badge in his hands and taking a step towards the counter on Dean’s left. “I promise we are only here to help. Please tell us what has happened here.” Dean glanced over at Steve, who was standing on his right, and gave him an impressed look. Steve nodded with a small smile. Thor was a fast learner when he wanted to be.

Jillian regarded him carefully, but seemed to relax at the soothing sound of Thor’s voice. However, she did raise her eyebrow pointedly after looking him up and down, so it could have been that as well. Either way, that seemed to be enough to get her to speak with them. “Look, I don’t know how much I can tell you. I was only here until about eight o’clock last night, and nothing unusual was happening when I left. All I know is what I was told when I got here. You’ll have to talk to Julia or Kent if you want firsthand knowledge. They were the ones who found him last night.”

“And are they working today?” Steve questioned. “Or do you have phone numbers we could use to reach them?”

“Um, I think Kent will be here in about fifteen minutes, but Julia called to take the next few days off. I have her phone number and address around here somewhere, let me find it for you real quick. One moment, please,” Jillian replied, rising from her chair and walking into the small office behind the desk. 

While they were by themselves, Dean patted Thor on the back a couple times. “Look at you, man, using your soft eyes and rugged features to get her to open up, talk about getting your head in the game! Great job!” he praised quietly. Thor beamed and looked over at Steve proudly, the challenge evident in his smile. Steve shook his head but stood up a little straighter when Jillian walked back in the room.

“Here you guys go,” she said, the information they needed on a piece of paper in her outstretched hand. Steve moved forward and grabbed it first. 

“Thank you so much. This will really help. And I hate to be more of a bother, but is there any way we could book a couple rooms? The home office is a few hours away and driving back and forth would be a bit of a pain,” Steve said smoothly, handing the piece of paper to a very much taken aback Dean. 

Jillian adjusted her glasses and cleared her throat, trying to hide the obvious color that had rushed to her cheeks. “No problem at all, how many rooms would you gentlemen like?”

“Three, please,” Dean interjected before either of the competing Avengers could speak. “I’m sure you’ll find this hard to believe, but now and then we really need time away from each other.”

A snort-laugh erupted from Jillian’s mouth, causing her blush to deepen. “I have no doubts whatsoever, Agent. All right, I have you all just across the hallway from the crime scene for ease of access. Here are your keys. Also, I believe my boss is up inspecting the room right now, so I’m sure you’ll see him up there,” she replied as she dropped three sets of keys onto the counter in front of her. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“No, you have done quite enough for us. Thank you very much, Jillian,” Thor answered, flashing her a broad smile. Dean rolled his eyes and grabbed the keys, tossing one to Steve before grabbing Thor and pulling him towards the elevators. 

“We’ll call if we have any more questions, thank you for your help,” Dean told her with a nod. “Also, please call us if you notice anything strange or out of the ordinary.” And with that, he pushed the both of them in the first elevator door that opened. Once the doors closed, Dean couldn’t help but shake his head. “What have I created? I don’t know whether to be scared or proud. You guys didn’t even need me there.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, your direction helped us a great deal,” Steve affirmed.

“Steve is correct, we excelled only through your wisdom,” Thor added.

Dean gave a sideways nod, smiled lightly, and tried to look nonchalant, despite the fact that inside he was bursting with joy. He taught the Avengers something and they gave him credit! 

The elevator made the customary ding as they reached the fifth floor and it didn’t take them long to find the scene of the crime. There was still yellow police tape all across the door and entryway of room 503 and several people with CSI jackets and cameras were leaving just as they approached the place.

“Looks like they’re finishing up in there,” Steve observed quietly, earning a curt nod from Dean who had returned to business mode. The three of them crossed under the tape and entered the room cautiously. There were still a couple of people hanging around in the room, but most of them seemed to be construction crew, most likely hired by the hotel. They all wore white jumpsuits and yellow hardhats, and were being directed by a squat man in an expensive looking suit. 

“Bingo,” Dean muttered, heading straight for the man in charge. “Excuse me sir, are you the hotel manager?”

The guy barely gave Dean a second glance as he continued to watch the men in white. “Who wants to know?” he asked with a nasally voice. 

“FBI, that’s who,” Dean replied curtly, already not liking this guy. “We talked to Officer Denton and he approved us taking over his case. We’d appreciate it if you could talk to us for a few minutes before we start our investigation.”

The man sighed loudly and rubbed his forehead, which was shiny from what Dean hoped was sweat. To be fair it was pretty hot in the room, but between that, his beady eyes, and the thick mustache that sat on his thin upper lip, this guy didn’t seem to have much going for him in the way of looks. And once he started talking, it was pretty obvious that his personality wasn’t much better. “Listen, I don’t care who you are as long as you catch whatever did this so my hotel can go back to normal. The last thing I need is for all the normal people to cancel their bookings and have all the paranormal freaks swarm here again. They’re bad for business!”

Steve’s eyebrows rose out of curiosity. “Again? Has this happened before?”

The man’s face turned three shades redder than it had been a moment before and the three of them knew they were on to something. “Answer his question,” Thor demanded in a low voice, making the manager take a step back while trying to still look like he was in charge.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Uh huh. Well, if you won’t answer that question, how about you answer this one: why did you tell me to catch ‘whatever’ did this and not ‘whoever’ did this? Do you not think the person responsible is an actual person?” Dean pressed, moving forward to not give the man any more space. When he just stood there silently, holding his ground, Thor walked towards him menacingly but Dean, with a tight smile on his face, stopped him before he could get to the manager. “Well, if you’re not going to answer our questions, we’re going to have to ask you to leave so we can start our investigation. You’ve contaminated enough evidence as it is, and I won’t allow you to further hinder this case. We’ll be talking again, I guarantee it, and if you are as forthcoming then as you are now, I’ll have you arrested for obstruction of justice. Go now before I have my partners here drag you out, along with your men. Have a nice day.”

The manager, who was so obviously enraged that his face had transitioned to a dark shade of purple, sputtered nonsense at them for a few moments before gesturing to the construction crew to leave before waddling towards the door, huffing to himself the whole way out. There was a loud yell as soon as he had made it to the hallway, followed by the sound of Sam, Natasha, and Clint barraging him with questions about ghosts and whether or not he believed this was a sign of the apocalypse.

Dean and Steve chuckled at the sound, while Thor seemed more interested in the sight in front of them. “Odin’s beard,” he murmured, aghast. It was a fair reaction, considering what he was looking at. Despite the fact that Denton had described the sight to them, it was nothing compared to seeing it in person. It was like the man had literally been dragged into the very foundation and framework of the wall itself. He was melded with the drywall, the wooden posts, even the piping. Were it not for the fact that he hadn’t decomposed very much and that they knew the kill was recent, not one of the group would have assumed he hadn’t been there since the hotel had been built. His face was filled with fear, even in death. His mouth was still open, presumably from the fact that he had been screaming when he died. Dark curls of hair were wound tightly to his head, and the left lens of his glasses was cracked. Just like Denton had said, his right arm was outstretched, and judging by how far it came out, it was likely only from his elbow to his hand had been visible before the wall had been removed. It was a gruesome thing to see.

“Hey guys, so what’s the—whoa,” Sam started as he entered the room, but was quickly caught off guard by the same thing that the other three were staring at. “That’s new.”

Clint followed in shortly after Sam, giggling as he kept his gaze on something in the hallway. “Oh man, did you see the look on that guy’s face when I said that spirits only watch you when you do something that even they find wrong? Hoo, boy, that guy isn’t going to sleep for a month. Now, time to kick some ghost aAHHH! What the hell!” Barton yelled, jumping further away from the opened wall as if he thought the body was going to suddenly animate and run after him.

Natasha was the last one in of the second group, and after looking at Clint like he was nuts, she glanced over to where everyone else was looking. Her eyes regarded the scene carefully before she finally uttered: “Huh.”

“That’s all you can say?! ‘Huh’?! What’s wrong with you? Oh God, we’re all gonna die,” Clint hollered the beginning of the thought before saying the rest of it to himself with his head bowed and his hands on his hips. “Never thought I’d die by ghosts, but here we are. Assassins, sure, but not ghosts. Son of a bitch. Why me?”

Natasha rolled her eyes and looked at him. “Get a grip, Barton, we’re gonna be fine. You have your salt and iron tipped arrows, remember? Nothing’s going to get to you unless you let it.”

It took a few moments, but eventually he let out a long breath and nodded. “You know, you’re right. I got this. I mean, it’s not like it’s going to be a kid ghost or anything, right? It’ll be some gross old guy that probably just went into a supply closet for a mop and had a heart attack. We’ll be fine.”

It was in that moment that Tony and Bruce made their entrance. “Well, bad news, everyone, looks like the most likely candidate for this haunting is some kid that was shoved into one of those secret rooms that these old places have and they were forgotten about and suffocated. Most likely some deranged punishment that went too far,” Tony announced, hands in his pockets, as he walked through the entryway. The sound of Barton wailing on the other side of the room was mostly ignored as the rest of the group got into a sort of circle to discuss their next move.

“Do you know the name of the kid? We’re going to have to find out where they’re buried so we can salt and burn the remains,” Sam questioned the two newcomers, making occasional concerned glances to where Clint was lying face down on the bed.

“Uh, yeah, her name was Karin Presley. Six years old, raised by her dad, who was apparently a mean drunk,” Bruce supplied for him, jaw clenching at the thought of it.

“Okay, so that means she’s probably targeting males that she feels reminds her of her dad. Could be based on appearance or on the fact that they drink a lot,” Dean pondered, brow furrowed with thought. There was a moment of silence as the possibility of the latter idea reached them. “Well, we better hope it’s not the alcohol thing, or I’m in trouble,” Dean added with a nervous chuckle.

“Yeah, I think I’m definitely in that club as well,” Tony affirmed after the rest of the Avengers looked at him pointedly.

“So, we should probably try to find out what this guy looked like so we know for sure whether the alcoholics among us are for sure in trouble or not,” Steve said, trying his hardest to not shake his head. 

“That means you don’t already know? Wow, Tony, you’re slipping. I thought you knew everything,” Natasha teased, arms crossed over her chest. 

Stark huffed. “JARVIS is still acclimating to being on a completely different server. We are, you know, in a completely different dimension,” he said defensively. “Besides, that’s big talk coming from someone whose best friend is literally crying into a pillow at the thought of having to face a ghost.”

Romanoff sighed, knowing he was right. “Hey, Clint!” she hollered over her shoulder. “Это стыдно встать прежде чем я сделать вас встать.”

“I will get up when I’m damn good and ready!” Clint’s muffled voice replied angrily.

“Hopeless,” she muttered to herself. “Aliens, sure, but God forbid a ghost.”

“Aha! Found it,” Tony said cheerfully. “Okay, let’s take a look at our murderous father compared to this guy.” He held up his mobile device and a perfect hologram was projected right next to the guy still stuck in the wall. The recent kill had dark hair, tan skin, and glasses, whereas the unfit parent had blond hair, pale skin, and seemed to be significantly shorter. 

The group stood silently for a moment, hoping that they would find at least one thing similar. “They do not look anything alike,” Thor commented, obviously unsettled.

“Yikes,” Tony stated calmly.

“Bummer,” Dean agreed. “Well, looks like the two of us are going do some shots and be bait for this kid while everyone else is finding and destroying the body.” he said looking at Tony.

Stark smirked. “You had me at ‘shots’.”

“Just a thought, but maybe two people should stay here with you just in case you guys go overboard,” Sam suggested with a sigh. 

“Ooh! I volunteer Clint!” Nat said quickly, grinning broadly.

“You take that back!” Barton bellowed, finally getting up from his position on the bed.

“I’ll stay behind, too,” Steve offered, acting like he hadn’t even heard Hawkeye. “We’re going to need at least one person with a level head here.”

“All right, it’s settled then. Steve, Clint, Dean, and Tony will be our home team here, while the rest of us get to go grave hopping,” Sam announced, ignoring Natasha’s evil smile and Barton’s look of distress. 

“Still a lot of time before dark, so I think the three of us,” Dean said, pointing to himself, Steve, and Thor, “should go ahead and question the two hotel staff that were witnesses just in case they saw anything that might help us.”

Steve and Thor nodded. “The woman at the front desk said that the guy, Kent I think his name was, would be here soon, we should probably try to find him first,” Rogers pointed out.

“All right, that sounds like a plan. Sam, you’re in charge of the rest of the team for the time being, try not to kill them,” Dean replied, shooting his brother a mischievous look. 

Sam groaned and rolled his eyes. “Whatever, Dean. Try not to get your ‘FBI Agents’ shot in the line of duty.”

“Yeah, right! Why don’t you go EMF something.”

“Bite me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Natasha's Russian loosely translates to "This is embarrassing, get up before I make you get up."
> 
> Finally, another chapter! Jeez, I'm terrible at this. Once again, I'm really sorry and hope this was worth the wait. Thank you again for reading and putting up with me!


	9. Preparations Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow Tony and Bruce to the graveyard, and watch how Sam, Clint, and Natasha work their way around the hotel!

“All right,” Sam started after Dean and his crew left, “since we also have time to kill, we’re going to split back up into our original groups to get some preparing done for tonight. Tony, you and Bruce go find the grave site and check it out since you have the other car. Check for any kind of cameras or risks we’ll have to take care of before digging up the bones.” Bruce and Tony nodded and glanced at each other. “The rest of us are going to stay here and find out if there are going to be any other… risks that we need to account for.”

“And by ‘risks’, do you mean we’re checking to see if anyone else is planning on drinking themselves into oblivion tonight, therefor giving our ghost someone else to go after instead of us?” Natasha questioned, all business.

Sam chuckled lightly. “Yes, that is exactly what I mean. Is, uh, Clint going to be okay?”

The group turned to see Clint as far away as possible from the petrified body in the room, facing the wall and occasionally shaking his head. Natasha shrugged. “He’ll be fine. Better once we get out of this room, probably.”

“Which we should probably do soon before someone comes back and asks why we’re here,” Banner pointed out as he moved casually towards the door. 

“Right, good point. Okay, Nat, Clint, we’re on hotel duty; Tony, Bruce, go check out the graveyard. Call me if you notice anything suspicious,” Sam concluded, herding everyone towards the door. 

Despite the fact that he had been farthest away, Clint managed to get through the door and out of the room first. As soon as he was several feet away from the entrance, he took in a long, deep breath and let it out slowly. “God, I love breathing air that isn’t around dead people,” he muttered to himself.

\---

“Hey, you okay? You seemed a little tense back there,” Tony prompted when he and Banner were nearing the Chevelle. 

“Okay? How am I supposed to be okay?” Bruce practically shouted before opening the car door. “Tell me honestly, Tony, are you actually completely fine with everything that’s going on around here? We have a kid who was so traumatically killed that she has come back to take more innocent lives in return. A little girl. How sick and twisted is this reality that we’re in that this kind of thing happens regularly?”

The both of them got into the car and Stark turned on the engine before replying. “Don’t kid yourself, okay? Bad shit like this happens just as often where we come from, we just don’t have them returning from the grave to remind us of it.”

“What, so that makes it okay? Children coming back to haunt and murder people just so we don’t forget that they suffered?” Banner scoffed. “Tony, this was someone’s baby. Now, I’m not saying that I don’t want to see the bastard that did this dead, but I sure as hell wouldn’t want to see her have to do it herself.”

“Well, then I guess it’s a good thing you won’t be there to see it, now isn’t it?” Tony responded quietly. “Besides, the son of a bitch is already dead. The least we can do is make sure that little girl never has to be in the presence of someone like him again.”

The rest of the car ride passed by without very much conversation. The trip ended up taking up the better part of an hour, and by the time they got there the tension between the two friends had just started to diffuse. 

“Look, Tony, I—” Bruce started as they walked towards the graveyard.

“Don’t worry about it,” Tony interrupted nonchalantly. “Stress is high from all the crap that’s been going on, I get it. I just want to say thank you for not hulking out in the car, I think the ride here would have been way worse that way.”

Banner smiled, despite his best efforts. “Well, I do what I can.”

“And we all appreciate it, believe me!” Stark insisted, also smiling. “All righty, let’s find us a grave.”

“Did JARVIS tell you where in this place she was buried?” Bruce asked as he scanned the grave stones closest to him for the name they were looking for.

“Uh, no. Actually, we don’t even know for sure that it’s this one, the article didn’t say where she was buried,” Tony replied as he continued walking, not looking back at Banner as he did so.

Bruce shook his head. “This is going to be a long trip.”

\----

Back in the hotel, Sam, Nat, and Clint all stood staring down the hallway. As soon as Bruce and Tony had left, they stopped and tried to figure out the best way to go about their plan. 

“It would really be helpful if we knew how many people were in this hotel and where they were,” Barton muttered, rubbing his forehead with the palm of his hand. 

“Yeah, it would,” Sam agreed. “How many rooms are in this place, anyway?”

“There are six floors, each with about fourteen rooms, alternating odds and evens for ease of access, first floor is mainly for management, so about seventy rooms altogether,” Natasha spoke up, easily doing the math in her head.

Sam was instantly impressed, but tried to keep his giddiness to a minimum. “All right, and because of the murder I have a feeling a lot of people checked out, so that means we could be knocking on a lot of doors with no one in the rooms. If only there was a way to at least narrow it down.”

As if the universe had heard their plea for help, one of the doors at the far end of the hell opened up and a cleaning maid appeared out of it. Her face showed exhaustion and annoyance, and her black slacks had white stain spots on them, most likely from bleach. A few strands of her amber hair had fallen into her dark eyes from the tight bun on the back of her head and she swatted at them as she made marks on what appeared to be a schedule of rooms to clean. Once she had finished, she started pushing her cart full of cleaning supplies down the hall towards the three of them. 

“I got this,” Sam and Clint said simultaneously as they started heading towards the woman. Natasha decided to stay behind because as much fun as it would be to listen to their failed attempts at flirting up close, it would be even funnier from far away. A few words drifted back to Nat once the boys started chatting the maid up, mostly things like “eyes are so beautiful” and “how long have you worked here”. When she saw how annoyed the woman was getting, Romanoff started thinking about how all of this would have gone faster if she had just done this herself. After a few more minutes of strained conversation, Nat heard the woman loudly say, “If you wanted this to work you should have sent your friend over there, I don’t swing your way! Besides, she looks like Scarlett Johansson, and there is _nothing_ I wouldn’t do for that woman.” 

Natasha raised her eyebrows in surprise while Sam and Clint looked at her, dumbfounded. _I don’t know who this Scarlett Johansson lady is, but it’s my time to shine_ , she thought to herself as she started walking towards the group, making sure to put a little more sway into her hips.

“Hi,” Natasha greeted her with a sultry smile. “I’m sorry if my bodyguards were giving you trouble, it’s just that they need to know who is in the building for security reasons.” Clint looked outraged at the mention of “bodyguard” but Sam slapped a hand over his mouth before he could say anything. Natasha sidled up closer to the now stammering maid and leaned in to whisper in her ear. “It’s okay if we take a peek at your cleaning schedule, right? I’d be happy to repay the favor by helping you make the most of your next break,” she purred before placing several gentle kisses on the other woman’s neck. The maid shivered and let out a quiet gasp before throwing her entire schedule in the general direction of the two men who were watching this whole ordeal with their cheeks tinged pink.

“Take it. I’ll get another one later. It’s time for my break anyway,” the woman said breathlessly.

“Start doing your security checks, boys, I’ll catch up with you when I’m finished,” Natasha spoke easily, letting the maid lead her to the closest room that was assumedly empty.

“O-uh, um okay,” Sam replied awkwardly, holding the packet full of room information, not realizing he still had a hand clamped firmly over Clint’s mouth. As soon as the door closed Barton wrestled himself out of Sam’s grip and punched him in the arm. “Ow! What was that for?” Sam asked, rubbing his now bruised shoulder.

“For making me watch that whole thing. Natasha’s my—well, never mind, let’s just go,” Clint grumbled before snatching the schedule out of Sam’s hand and walking back down the hall. “There aren’t any more on this floor, let’s start at the top and work our way down.”

 

Sam and Clint had made their way through eight rooms and were on the third floor when Natasha finally caught up with them. “Hey guys, find any other drunk contenders yet?” Sam shook his head no and Nat noticed Barton’s stony expression. “You okay, Clint?”

“Yup. Perfect,” Clint replied quickly, not looking at her.

“You know, I haven’t been called ‘Scarlett’ since that one time in Germany, do you remember?” she asked, changing the subject.

“How could I forget? You called me ‘Magenta’. We were the ‘Color Duo from the East’,” he replied grumpily. 

“And do you remember what we agreed when we were there?” Romanoff prompted, eyes only drifting to Sam once to see that he had wandered a bit down the hall and was looking very interested in a painting of fruit.

Barton clenched his eyes shut before answering. “The job is the job. We do whatever is necessary.” 

“This is the job. Right here. And just in case you’ve forgotten, I’ve never once thought of you as a job, Clint.”

He opened his eyes to see Natasha smiling at him. Not her usual smirk that hid what she was thinking, but an actual smile. Clint felt himself smile back at her. “Right back atcha.”

“Then let’s finish the job. We have a kid ghost to take care of,” she stated before heading over towards Sam. 

Clint groaned. “You just had to ruin the moment by mentioning the damn ghost again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, I can't believe this took so long. Sorry it's not a super long chapter, I was engulfed with Civil War and then I was engulfed in life, and it's been a mess, but here we are! I hope you enjoyed it! And since there was some relationship progress, I have updated the tags as promised.


	10. Witnesses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our very special FBI agents locate the witnesses and find out what they know.

It didn’t take long for the three “agents” to find one Kent Callaghan, a six foot one inch athletic man who worked as a food server for room service. His attire was that which you would expect from someone who worked in a kitchen: black slacks, black shoes, and a white double-breasted jacket that looked like it was pulled straight out of a cooking show. Despite the uncomfortable way the conversation started, Kent loosened up pretty quickly when he realized that he was talking to FBI agents. Or at least thought he was, but that’s not important. 

“So what were you doing when you came across the deceased’s room?” Dean asked, his small notepad and pen at the ready. 

Kent’s golden eyes were accented by dark circles indicating a lack of rest, and they rolled upwards in thought at the question posed to him. “I was on my way to take food to room 515, they had ordered a grilled chicken cranberry salad and scrambled eggs, which I thought to be a bit weird, but let me tell you the guy was—”

“Just the facts, sir,” Steve interrupted him smoothly. Dean had to cough to cover his chuckle at Steve’s most likely unintentional Dragnet reference.

Kent shook his head, making his unruly blond curls dance around his face. “Sorry about that, I didn’t get much sleep last night, as I suppose you can imagine. I can only think about all of the things you guys have seen on your job. Have you ever—” Kent stopped himself this time and let out a strained laugh as he shifted his weight. “There I go again, sorry. Back to your question, though, I was delivering to 515 when I started hearing weird yelling from 503. It was like the guy was talking to someone, saying things like ‘what are you doing here’ and ‘who asked you, you little bitch’.” 

The group raised their eyebrows at the second statement, and Kent looked a little sheepish to have even said the words out loud. “It kinda freaked me out a little, but considering all the things I’ve heard here it wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary. I made good on my delivery of food and was on my way back to the elevator when I heard sounds of violence from 503. Since I’m usually one of the people called to assist with disturbances, I decided to try to intervene to prevent anything bad from happening. Guess I failed there.” With his last statement, Kent seemed to drift into thought, eyes unfocused as they stared into the distance. 

The hunters could tell this guy was trying his hardest not to lose it and pretend everything was okay, but it was obvious he was fighting a losing battle. Thor was the one to finally break the silent tension.

“Are you all right?” he asked gently, placing a hand on Kent’s shoulder as an offer of comfort. The contact seemed to snap the man back into reality and he smiled weakly as he ran his long fingers through his hair. 

“Sorry, again. Guess I’m kind of useless as a witness, huh? Can’t even keep on one topic for more than five seconds.” The laugh Kent expelled was forced and hollow.

“You’ve actually been extremely helpful,” Steve assured him with a warm expression. “And trust me, there’s no way you could be a worse witness than your boss. He was the definition of unhelpful.”

“Not to mention he was just a douche in general, I wonder who shoved that stick up his ass,” Dean added, trying to get the younger man to at least smile.

The comments made Kent release an actual laugh and Thor removed his hand at the sight of him coming back to himself. When Kent resumed his story, his voice was more confident. “Anyway, the sounds I was hearing were… well, it was mostly the guy yelling for whoever was in there with him to stay away, and there was a lot of glass shattering and things falling over.”

Steve’s brow furrowed in thought as he recalled the crime scene. There had been no signs of struggle anywhere in the room when they had arrived. While it was possible that everything had been cleaned up and replaced while the cleaning/construction crew was there, it was a little unlikely. Making a mental note to ask about it later, he returned to the present and continued to listen to what Kent was saying.

“…which was when Julia showed up. Since my key wasn’t working on the door she tried hers, but when that didn’t work either we started trying to force the door open. That was when the screaming stopped. And I—” Kent paused as a shiver ran down his spine. The next words he said were spoken in a much quieter tone. “I know you won’t believe me, but I swear I felt something cold come through the door right after that. It made me jump away, and that was when Julia finally kicked the door open. As scared as I was, I wasn’t about to let her go in there alone, you know, so I followed her. And that’s when we just saw…” The words seemed to disappear from his mind and he instead just grabbed onto his arm right above the elbow and mimed the way the victim’s arm had been jutting out from the wall. 

Dean nodded in understanding and gave him a reassuring smile. “Thank you for talking with us, I think that’s all we need. We’ll find you later if we have any other questions.” Dean was about to turn away when he suddenly thought of something. “Oh, and if your boss gives you a hard time about anything, just call us, okay? We might just be a couple of lowly agents, but I bet we could put the fear of God in him all the same,” he said with a wink as he held out a business card. Kent’s cheeks turned a shade slightly pinker than they had been a moment ago as he clumsily took the card from Dean’s hand, gratuitous words tumbling from his lips.

Steve rolled his eyes as the group headed away from the kitchen and towards the exit. Shameless. 

 

Thor laid claim to the passenger seat as the three approached the Impala, much to Steve’s displeasure. It wasn’t that he disliked the backseat, it was just as comfortable as the rest of the car, but whenever Thor was in the shotgun position he had a tendency to either overly observe his surroundings out loud or continuously change the music that was playing. There was also that one thing that happened with Mjolnir and the pumpkin, though technically that was the thief’s fault. Regardless, that incident was never to be spoken of again.

Steve thought about bringing this up to Dean, who seemed to be the kind of guy to be overly controlling when it came to his car, but for some reason he decided to let it play out and got in the seat behind Thor with no comment. 

“What tunes have we to listen to?” was the first thing out of Thor’s mouth as soon as all of the car doors had been shut. 

Dean blinked a few times, as if trying to figure out if he had heard him correctly. He wasn’t sure if he was more perturbed by the question itself or by the fact that Thor had referred to “music” as “tunes”. “W-what? What makes you think you get to decide that?” Dean sputtered as he turned the key in the ignition, bringing the engine to life.

The Odinson looked almost hurt at the question. “Is choosing the music not one of the duties as ‘shotgun’? I had been led to believe that it was one of the requirements, along with giving direction.”

Dean pulled out onto the road and was about to immediately shut down any preconceived notions that the controller of the music was anyone but him when he glanced over to see Thor’s face. He looked like a kicked puppy, or like a child that had just had his balloon pop. Damn it, it was so much easier when the only person he had to worry about this with was Sam, especially since his way of dealing Sam trying to control the music was just telling him to shut up before ramping up the volume on a song he knew Sam hated. Looking at Thor’s broken expression, he found himself unable to do that with him, and instead just waved his hand in the air before grumbling that he could do whatever he wanted. The good feeling he felt in his chest at the giddiness of Thor reaching for the radio controls was fairly short lived.

In the backseat, Steve silently started counting the minutes it took for Dean to lose it. He was surprised that Thor singing along loudly to the opera station didn’t do it (which was the eighth station in five minutes that Thor had chosen) but what finally did was a channel that seemed to be completely devoted to Russian polka music. 

“I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE,” Dean bellowed after the ninth song on the channel, interrupting Thor’s cheerful bouncing to the beat. He punched the button to change the input to whatever cassette happened to be in the player, and soon the sound of Hot Blooded by Foreigner came roaring through the speakers as Dean turned the volume up as high as he could without worrying about blowing out the speakers. The god of thunder sunk low into his seat, foul expression on his face, and turned to stare miserably out the car window.

To everyone’s shared relief, the car ride only lasted a few more minutes and they finally rolled up in front of Julia’s house. They all got out of the car and adjusted their suits, and while Thor began walking towards the front door, Dean stopped Rogers with a firm hand on Steve’s chest.

“You knew, didn’t you?” he said in a low voice that sounded more like a growl. 

As much as he tried, Steve couldn’t suppress the smirk from curling his lips upward. “I did,” he responded, laughter in his voice. “To be honest, I didn’t think you would even let him have control to begin with.”

Dean scoffed and slid his hand off of Steve’s chest. “Are you kidding me? Did you see his face? You’d have thought I told him his hammer had been broken or something.”

Steve nudged the Winchester towards the house where Thor stood waiting for them and they both started walking. “Yeah, he doesn’t look it, but Thor has definitely mastered the art of ‘victory through guilt’. Gotta watch out for that one.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean muttered with a wave of his hand as he walked past Thor to ring the doorbell. 

They waited for about five minutes in silence, and Steve was about to push the doorbell again when they heard the sound of the multiple locks tumbling and soon the door was being pulled open. Dean wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t Wonder Woman. And really that wasn’t even an exaggeration, as she had to be six foot nine inches with dark brown gentle curls framing her angular face. Much like Kent, her blue eyes had rings beneath them and it looked like some of her makeup was smeared across her face. Suddenly, he had no problem imagining why Kent had let her break down the door.

“Why, Diana Prince, is that you?” Dean asked before he could stop himself, flirtatious grin firmly in place. 

Steve elbowed him hard in the side while Julia rolled her eyes in annoyance. “Yeah, I’ve never heard that one before,” she scoffed, her accent indicating she was foreign, most likely British. “What do you lot want?”

The three all held out their badges for her, and after examining them for a few moments, Julia breathed out a long sigh. “I see. You’re here about Mr. 503, aren’t you? Well, I guess you’d better come in.” She held open the door for them and they walked in respectfully, waiting for her to close and lock the entrance before walking any further into the house. Once she was done, she turned around and started walking towards what looked like the kitchen. “Judging by the time, I’m assuming you all talking to Kent already. Not sure what else I can tell you, he was there a lot longer than I was. All I did was hear an awful racket and bust the door open.” She gestured to the dining room table and they all sat down.

“We just need to confirm some facts with you, if that’s okay,” Dean said, now in professional mode. “What sounds did you hear that alerted you that something was wrong?”

Julia shrugged. “I mean, you hear a lot of things working in a hotel, but that much banging and yelling… there had to be more going on than the usual kinky stuff. I could hear it from the fourth floor, so that’s why I came up, and then I found Kent there already trying to get in. When neither of our keys worked, we resorted to the old fashioned way.”

“What did the room look like when you finally got in?” Steve asked, his curiosity from earlier popping up. 

A frown appeared on Julia’s face. “Actually, it was weird. I could have sworn I heard a bunch of things breaking in there, but nothing was out of place when we finally got in. Well, except for the… you know. Arm sticking out of the wall.” 

“Did you notice anything else out of place?” Thor questioned next.

Rubbing her eyes as she thought back, she groaned. “I dunno. The room seemed a bit colder than the hallway I guess, but that’s not super strange, right? Guy probably just had his air conditioning all the way up. One of those weirdos.”

Dean nodded. “And just for our information, have you ever heard of any other mysterious deaths happening at that place? Maybe in a similar fashion?”

“What, do you think something supernatural did it? You lot are out of your minds, who are you, the X-Files people?” she snorted.

“X-Files?” Steve asked, looking to Dean for clarification. 

The hunter just shook his head dismissively. “Regardless, do you know of any?”

“No, I haven’t worked there very long and after last night I’m not going to be working there much longer,” she replied, voice starting to sound tired. “Is that all? I’ve got a date with my bed and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s.”

They thanked her for her time and promptly left, but not before Thor gave her a card with their numbers in case she remembered anything. She looked him up and down appreciatively before taking the card and returning inside her house. 

“Well, that didn’t really clear anything up,” Dean huffed as he opened the driver’s side door to the Impala. 

Steve, taking pity on Dean, grabbed the door to the front side seat before Thor could, who was once again sporting a pout on his face. “Well, better to try and not learn anything than not try and miss something important.”

“Why did you address her as ‘Diana Prince’ when she appeared before us? Was she a past conquest of yours?” Thor questioned Dean from the back seat.

The Winchester let out a bark of laughter as he turned the car around for them to head back to the hotel. “Oh, buddy, I wish.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again it took forever, but I hope you enjoyed it! I also had no idea Russian polka music was a thing until I wrote it down and then decided to look it up. It is now one of my favorite things.


	11. Preparations Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang finalize their plan over dinner.

It had been several hours since the group had split up to work their separate leads. The sun had started wilting in the sky, indicating that dusk wasn’t far off. The time had finally come for them to reconvene and share the new information they had gathered. Since it was the one closest to the crime scene, they all met up in one of the three rooms that the “FBI Agents” had acquired. Tony and Bruce were the last to show up, each of them holding at least three bags of food in their arms and making the rest of their party stare as they opened the door. 

“We have arrived with dinner!” Tony announced grandly as they crossed the threshold. Bruce ducked in behind him, shaking his head but smiling softly. 

“Thank God, I’m starving,” Dean immediately said, rushing to the door from his seat on the bed and grabbing several of the bags Tony was holding. “Jeez, man, how much did you get?”

“Two of everything they had at the burger place down the street,” Banner answered for him, slight judgement evident in his tone. 

Tony shrugged and made a gesture with his now free hand. “I had no choice, as I am still not fully ‘in the know’ with what our news friends here prefer, food-wise.”

“Stop sounding so proper, you’re creeping me out,” Natasha said as she ransacked one of the bags to find the biggest bacon cheeseburger she could find. “Where’s the ketchup?”

“In one of mine, I think,” Bruce replied as he let Sam take the bags out of his left hand. “We got an entire thing full of condiments just in case.”

They laid their food out on one of the dressers buffet style and everyone formed a line to grab their preferred dinner item. Sam was nearly giddy to discover that there was a delicious looking salad available and he snatched it quickly, not wanting anyone else to steal it from him. Dean rolled his eyes at the guy while he grabbed two burgers and sat back down on the bed. He had just opened one of the packages when his phone loudly went off. Trying to pass off his startled jump as annoyance, Dean reached into his pocket and looked at the screen before answering it. “Cas? Is everything okay?” He said into the phone as he stood up, leaving his food on the bed in his spot and walking towards an empty corner for mild privacy.

“Hello, Dean,” Castiel’s voice rumbled through the speaker. He sounded tired, but not alarmed. Dean’s nerves eased slightly at that, but when Cas didn’t say anything else, his free hand lifted into the air questioningly while he shook his head lightly. 

“What’s up, man? Why’d you call?”

“Bobby was worried because we haven’t heard from you, but he didn’t want to call himself.” There was a muffled voice in the background yelling “I wasn’t worried, damn it!” and Dean chuckled at the sound of Bobby’s grumpiness. Good to know at least that hadn’t changed. 

“Sorry we hadn’t updated you, this case has just been one weird thing after another. But everyone’s fine, Mom, thanks for checking.”

“I don’t understand why you are calling me that, I did not give birth to you, how could I be your mother? Are you sure you’re okay?” 

Dean sighed loudly at his friend’s deadpan voice. Guy still needed to lighten up. “Never mind. Anyway, we’re about to finish this thing up, so I’m gonna go get drunk and get this ghost before it gets anyone else.”

“How is becoming intoxicated helping anything in this situation, Dean? Shouldn’t you be as aware as possible in this situation?”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll be fine.”

“Dean--”

“I said I’m fine! I’ll call you when we’re on our way back!” Dean huffed in annoyance before ending the call. When he turned around, he found the entire room staring at him with amused looks. “What?”

“Oh, nothing, it’s just nice to see love alive in the middle of the apocalypse,” Clint observed lightly as he popped a few French fries in his mouth. “Don’t you think, Nat?”

“Definitely. Nothing warms the heart quite like seeing a worried lover making sure their significant other is safe,” she replied smoothly before taking another bite of her burger. 

“W-what? What are you—” Dean sputtered, accidentally missing his pocket and dropping his phone on the floor with a loud _thunk_.

“I would have to agree, it’s nice to see the two of you caring about each other like that,” Banner joined in with a smile while Dean scrambled to grab his phone up off the carpet.

“Wha- c’mon, Bruce, you too?? Gimme a break here,” Dean muttered, red in the face, as he returned to his food and shoved a large bite in his mouth so he wouldn’t have to speak anymore. When he finally managed to swallow the large amount of food he had been chewing on, he took in a deep breath and on his exhaled he quietly said “Thank God the alcohol is coming soon.”

“Oh, speaking of that, we did also stop by a liquor store, so we have plenty to keep our spirits up as long as needed,” Tony piped up happily, moving from his leaning position against the wall and over to the big bag that hadn’t been opened yet. He reached inside and pulled out a bottle of tequila, vodka, whiskey, gin, brandy, bourbon, and spiced rum. They each looked like they had been the most expensive kind in the damn place. “This was the best I could find there, I guess we’ll have to slum it a bit. Oh well, should still work the same in the end.”

Steve eyed the grouping, brows furrowed. “Good grief, Tony, are you planning on getting alcohol poisoning? Why did you get so much?”

Tony turned towards him, eyebrows raised and smirk firmly in place. “Now who’s being the worried lover?”

Steve’s expression gained annoyance as well as already having concern. “Don’t deflect the question with sarcasm.”

“Loosen up, Rogers, I only wanted to have a variety on the off chance the type of alcohol was part of what would make the girl come.” Tony answered him while balling up his empty food wrapper. The bright humor in his eyes had started diminishing. “Besides,   
you’ll be here to keep us in line, right? What’s wrong with letting loose a bit? Maybe I’ll drink out of every bottle on this table tonight. It wouldn’t be anything new to me.”

The muscle in Steve’s jaw clenched at Tony’s words, but he didn’t reply to them. A tense atmosphere had quickly taken over the room, easily replacing the previous playful one. Sam looked between the two Avengers who were staring each other down and suddenly started to worry about their “home team”. But they had a plan, and he intended to stick to it, so it was time to step up and reign this mess in. So he stood and cleared his throat, the noise disrupting whatever silent exchange had been happening between Steve and Tony and bringing the rest of the party’s eyes to him. 

“Okay, now that we’ve eaten and had some, uh, side conversations, let’s discuss what we learned while we were all out so we can finalize the plan. Who would like to start?” Sam felt a bit stupid sounding like a grade school teacher by saying things like that, but   
it seemed to be the easiest way to make everyone work together. When in doubt: try simplicity.

Thor, who had been mostly quiet with the exception making small talk with people as they ate, ended up speaking up first. “We spoke with the two people who had been witness to the crime. Their answers to our questions were similar so I do not believe they were lying to us. However, we did not learn almost anything new about our ghost.”

“Yeah,” Steve started, finally looking away from Tony, who had moved back to his spot on the wall and was typing away on his phone. “They both talked about how they’d heard clear sounds of disturbance in the room, things breaking and such, but when they   
were finally able to get in, there weren’t any signs of a struggle or anything that looked out of place, with the obvious exception of the guy in the wall.” 

“So apparently, violent things will probably happen when she shows up, but the moment there’s anyone new looking in, everything looks perfect and untouched,” Clint concluded, grinding his teeth together angrily. “Sounds like an abuse victim, all right.”

“Knowing that, then, there’s a possibility that whoever is intoxicated will need to be alone to get our ghost to come to them. If nothing happens after a while, I would have Tony and Dean each go to a room alone with Clint and Steve outside their doors as   
backup,” Sam decided. 

Clint laid his head in his hands at the thought of having to stand outside the room by himself and just wait for a ghost to come walking up and kill him. Or kill Tony. Or kill Dean. Or Steve. A whine escaped his lips and Natasha patted him on the back with a smirk.

“We checked all of the rooms that had people staying in them, and none of them had minibars nor did the people seem particularly unstable, so I think we’re going to be okay on that front,” Sam continued, adding in what his team had learned. “Now for the important part, did you find out where the body was buried?”

“Uh… no,” Bruce stated quietly. 

“No?” Thor repeated. 

“What do you mean by that?” Steve asked, once again looking at Stark. 

“It means that we checked every graveyard within a twenty-five mile radius and she wasn’t in any of them,” Tony replied without looking up from his phone. “So either she’s in an unmarked grave somewhere, or they never actually found her body.”

Dean let out a frustrated sigh. “I have my doubts that they would bury her in an unmarked grave if they knew her name, so that leaves her still being in the walls here somewhere.” He looked pointedly at Sam, who was giving him the same knowing look. “Well, looks like everyone is staying here tonight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And after a hiatus caused by my sister getting married, I have returned! Sorry it's such a short chapter, but the next one is gonna be pretty long, so I hope that makes up for it. Thank you for staying with me on this!


End file.
